Nil Desperandum
by Imogen
Summary: Eleven years on from 'Alpha and Omega', Hope Potter is at Hogwarts, dealing with fame, unexpected revelations and some very mysterious goings on. Not everything at Hogwarts is quite what it seems.
1. Hope and Glory

Well, there's a first time for everything! This is the story that comes after 'Home Is Where The Heart Is', and even thought I haven't finished that one yet, I got bitten by a particularly savage plot bunny. As ever, most of this is JKR's, and it's fun to be revisiting her world from a very different perspective.  
  
Nil Desperandum  
  
Chapter 1: Hope and Glory  
  
~ * ~  
  
"Hope!" her mother's voice wafted up the stairs again, sounding slightly more exasperated this time.  
  
Hope dropped her Quidditch book onto the floor beside her bed and rolled lazily onto her back, stretching out luxuriously just like Aunt Hermione's cat. She couldn't be bothered with all this. All she wanted was a bit of peace and quiet, a last night to be alone in her room and do whatever she felt like.  
  
It wasn't that she wasn't excited about going to Hogwarts, she'd heard enough stories from all of her family to be looking forward to it very much, it was just that there were certain things that she was going to miss very much, like climbing the old oak tree in the back garden and swinging from its branches. Dad had said laughingly last time that he'd caught her up there that he wouldn't advise her to try that at school, or the Whomping Willow would have something to say about it and she'd be sent home in a tiny box, whomped into thousands of pieces.  
  
She'd laughed at that. Her whole world was one full of stories, including what her dad and Uncle Ron had got up to when they were in Gryffindor. She wondered idly if Grandpa's car was still running around in the Forbidden Forest. She hadn't seen it when her friend Robert had dared her to go into the wood, but it had been so dark and eerie in there she was glad that she'd stuck to the very fringes. She shivered. She wasn't too fond of spiders herself.  
  
It had been a good summer and Hope had made the most of it, getting into trouble at regular intervals. Mum had been less than impressed when she'd arrived home completely filthy after she and Robert had sneaked into the Shrieking Shack and found an underground passageway to explore. The village children still talked of the place being haunted, but Hope knew better. It had just been the sounds of Remus hurting that had frightened everyone, and she could never be scared of him.  
  
"Hope!"  
  
Heavy footsteps began to climb the stairs, and that galvanised Hope into action. Mum was having a bit of a hard time of it lately with the baby growing inside her and she didn't really mean to be rotten to her.  
  
"Coming!" she yelled back.  
  
With a wistful glance at her broom, which she was doomed to leave behind, she slid off her bed and galloped out of her door onto the landing.  
  
Her mum was only a few stairs up, but was standing with a hand on her hip and shaking her head with exasperation at her only daughter.  
  
"Granny and Grandpa are here to see you," she said, raising her eyebrows meaningfully.  
  
Hope grinned. Scurrying back into her bedroom she pulled a brush through her tangle of hair, yanking at the knots and sending her long red tresses flying in all directions, sparkling in the soft golden evening sunlight. She really had got the worst of the deal, she thought ruefully as she tried to flatten it back down again. The red wasn't so bad most of the time, but her hair definitely had a mind of its own, just like her dad's. It settled into wayward waves and with a quick smoothing of her dress, she bounded off and down the twisting stairs, her stomach full of excited butterflies.  
  
"Here she is," she heard her grandfather's amused voice as she pushed the kitchen door open. "What have you been up to this time, Hope? Enchanting those fish to swim backwards again?"  
  
"I was reading," she laughed, running over to the kitchen table and throwing her arms around him. He hugged her tightly and ruffled her freshly brushed hair.  
  
"Arthur!" her grandmother said crossly, but Hope didn't care. She adored the pair of them and sometimes wondered if her dad's Mum and Dad would have been the same if they'd still been alive. She slipped quickly into the seat beside him.  
  
"How's the packing going?" her mum chuckled, passing her a cup of tea and a biscuit. "It seemed awfully quiet up there for a change."  
  
"Er." Hope dropped her gaze and scuffed her toe against the kitchen floor.  
  
"Hope Potter, don't you even think about telling me you haven't started yet," her mother exclaimed.  
  
"We-ll, my trunk's not completely empty," Hope said honestly. "I did put my socks in before you ran off with them."  
  
Her mother's stern expression cracked and her brown eyes danced mischievously.  
  
"That doesn't mean they're safe," she laughed, wriggling her fingers as if tempted to go and steal the socks.  
  
"They'd better be," Hope said in her sternest voice. Her mum winked at her.  
  
"How are you feeling about tomorrow, dear," Granny asked, patting her hand affectionately. "You're not too nervous are you?"  
  
"No," Hope shook her head, sending her coppery hair flying. "I'm dying to see it all. Everyone's been telling me so much about it, like Nearly Headless Nick and the trick steps and Uncle George even told me how to."  
  
"I don't think I want to know," Granny interrupted quickly with a smile. "Don't you be getting into the same trouble that they did: the owls I got home about those two were worst than the rest of them put together, your father and Uncle Ron included. I wonder if you'll get put in my old dormitory."  
  
"Or mine," her mum said. "Two turns of the spiral up on the left hand side was where I was for six years. It was quite a nice room really, but your dad's was a bit better because it got the sun first thing in the morning."  
  
"Ginny!" Granny exclaimed in horrified tones.  
  
"Scandalous, isn't it?" Mum chuckled wickedly. "I think we'd been married for a few months by then as well and Hope was on the way."  
  
"I'm very glad to hear it," the mellow voice of Arthur Weasley sounded across the table. "Anyway, the reason for the visit is that we've brought a little something for a certain granddaughter of mine." He pushed a little squashy parcel across the table and smiled as she began to tear apart the wrapping, wondering what it could be.  
  
"It used to be mine," he said quietly. "I thought you'd like to have it."  
  
She looked up from the gift, a huge beam spreading across her face as she realised what she'd been given. Slightly faded striped of red and gold were shaken out of the parcel and held with trembling fingers. Grandpa's Gryffindor scarf. She couldn't think of anything she'd like more.  
  
"You're not going to King's Cross are you, Ginny?" her grandmother asked anxiously, while Hope smiled her thanks at her grandfather. Warm brown eyes met glistening green ones in perfect understanding and mutual appreciation.  
  
"No need," her mum lowered herself carefully into a chair. "It seems a bit silly to go all the way to London just to come back again, not that I can Apparate at the moment anyway. Hope can wait at the station with the other children from Hogsmeade and go up to Hogwarts with the rest of them. You never know," she added, with a chuckle, "she might even have her trunk packed by then."  
  
"Have you got everything you need, dear?"  
  
"Yes," Hope nodded. "Aunt Hermione took me to Diagon Alley last week and got me my books. I never realised I needed so many."  
  
Ginny snorted.  
  
"You probably don't," she chuckled. "I'm willing to bet there's a copy of 'Hogwarts: A History' in there for some light bedtime reading."  
  
"Robes, parchment, quills, cauldron, wand," Hope counted them off on her fingers. "I'm all set."  
  
"Oh! Show them your wand, Hope!" her mum exclaimed.  
  
Hope obligingly took her parcel, scurried off out of the kitchen and clattered her way up the stairs. She put her new possession safely into her trunk, smiling at it with pride for a moment. Then she collected her wand from the dressing table and hurried back downstairs to show them the badge of becoming a witch.  
  
Stepping back into the kitchen, her eyes alighted on a familiar figure she'd recognise anywhere, with dishevelled black hair and green eyes just like her own. He was wrestling to contain a tiny red-headed boy somewhere around his knees, as he ducked in and out beneath the hem his robes.  
  
Hope rolled her eyes. She could only hope that the new addition to the family was going to be another girl. Sam was cute sometimes, but he picked his nose, played with the slugs in the garden and did other vile and disgusting things she'd rather not dwell on. The thought of brothers in the plural was a little too much for anyone to bear.  
  
"Hi Dad," she smiled, passing her wand across to her grandmother for inspection. "It's willow, 12 inches with a core of unicorn hair," she explained importantly.  
  
There were general murmurs of approval as the wand was duly examined and passed back. Her father, meanwhile, had finally extricated himself from Sam and was smiling at her in such a way that she knew that he was up to something. His hands were firmly clasped behind his back. She tried to crane her neck to see what he was hiding, but he smiled enigmatically and turned away to prevent her from seeing.  
  
"Dad?" she asked.  
  
"Yes dear?" he replied, grinning mischievously at her.  
  
"Oh nothing," she said airily, pretending to turn her attention back to the conversation going on at the table.  
  
"Good," he said lightly. The two of them locked gazes for a moment, each daring the other to give in. The tension between them was rising until he suddenly pulled a face at her and they both broke out into fits of laughter.  
  
"A little something to make sure you stay in touch," her dad said, hoisting a velvet covered dome onto the table. "I saw this one and I just couldn't resist."  
  
Hope gasped. It couldn't be, could it? It was what she wanted more than anything, but she'd never dared mention it: after all, school wasn't exactly very far from home and she could always use Hedwig for return messages or one of the school barn owls. She lifted the heavy fabric of the cage, anticipation churning in her stomach. It was. It really was. Her very own owl. A negative image of a smaller Hedwig stared back at her through watchful amber eyes. He hooted softly, ruffling his shadowy feathers and shuffling on his perch.  
  
"Wow!" she whispered, bending even closer to memorise everything about him. She'd never seen an owl quite like this before.  
  
"Eeylops said they don't get these in very often," her father explained. "It's a sooty owl, and they're not a native breed at all. I believe they're found in some parts of Australia, so I'm not exactly sure how this little one got here, but I thought you'd want to give him a home. Am I right?"  
  
She looked up at her dad, fiercely blinking back hot tears before they had a chance to fall. "He's perfect," she whispered.  
  
***  
  
She couldn't sleep. Mum had insisted on an early night before her big day tomorrow, but it just wasn't working. The grown-ups had chattered on for an eternity downstairs, she could hear the mumbles and muffled laughter through the floor of her bedroom but strain as she might, she couldn't work out what they were saying. It quietened after a while and then there was the familiar sound of her dad bringing her mum upstairs to rest. Hope tossed and turned, and finally gave up on the idea of sleep altogether and lay on her stomach gazing up at the stars shining brightly in the inky sky far beyond her window.  
  
This was her home. It was everything that she was and everything that she had always known, and suddenly, somehow, it was hard to leave. She'd been looking forward to starting at Hogwarts for almost as long as she could remember. Her magical ability had shown itself early, and there had been little doubt that a letter would arrive from Hogwarts in due course so that she could follow in the footsteps of all her relatives. Yet here in the darkness, she felt an uneasy quiver of nerves tremor inside her. What if she let everyone down?  
  
There was a gentle knock at her door and she rolled over.  
  
"It's only me, Hope. Can I come in?"  
  
"Dad?"  
  
The door creaked open and his silhouette appeared at the foot of her bed by her half-packed trunk.  
  
"Are you awake?" he whispered.  
  
"No, I'm talking in my sleep," she teased.  
  
"Lumos," he muttered and the candles in the room flickered to life, dancing in the draft as he closed the door behind him. She sat up in bed and hugged her knees towards her, letting her dad sit down by her feet.  
  
"I couldn't sleep," Hope said quickly. "I think I'm excited about tomorrow or something."  
  
"Or nervous," her dad smiled, seeing right through her excuses. "Your mum and I are very proud of you, you do know that, don't you? And even though you'll just be up the road we're going to miss you an awful lot."  
  
"Me too," she whispered, holding her arms out for a hug the way she used to do when she was a little girl and had fallen over and grazed her knee. He'd always taken away the pain then even before he'd used his wand to heal her injuries. The strong arms wrapped around her once more, still loving and reassuring her.  
  
"Hogwarts is wonderful," he said thoughtfully, kissing the top of her head. "You'll learn so much and make new friends and maybe even sneak a game or two of Quidditch if McGonagall's nice and waives the no first-year rule. Imagine playing proper Quidditch," his voice was warming with enthusiasm on the topic of the game they both loved.  
  
"You really liked it there, didn't you?" Hope asked through the quiet of the night.  
  
Her father paused for a moment, his face half hidden in shadows.  
  
"I did," he said slowly, "but it wasn't always good. To start with it was like a miracle: you know my aunt and uncle who looked after me kept me locked away as a disgrace and an abnormality?" Hope nodded. "Well, Hogwarts was the first chance I had ever had to be me, to escape from them and my cousin's bullying and to live in my world, where I belonged. I met your Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione and suddenly I had friends too. It was better than anything I could have ever dreamed."  
  
"And Mum came along later, didn't she?" Hope asked, knowing the story by heart but wanting to hear it again anyway.  
  
"She did," her dad smiled fondly to the memories. "And you were born there too." There was quiet for a while, and she waited for him to continue. "Hope, you do need to be aware of something," he added at length.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Not all of my life at Hogwarts was good. Your first few days probably aren't going to be that easy," he admitted, raking a hand through his hair and making it stick out at even odder angles. "You know what happened when you were only a few days old," he went on and she nodded again. Dumbledore had harnessed her magical abilities to force the Avada Kedavra back onto Voldemort, using her own particular brand of Truitinae Bonitas as a force to kill the Dark Lord once and for all. "Quidditch aside, we've lived here fairly quietly since then," her dad said softly, "but like me, people know your name. You know how they treat you when they realise who you are, but imagine that a thousand fold. All that respect and glory for something you don't remember is very difficult to deal with. "If you forget everything else, remember this: just be yourself. There will always be gossip there in the background, but those sort of people aren't worth bothering with. You will find that there are some people out there who will act out of jealousy and set out to prove that the 'great and good Hope Potter' is not so wonderful after all. Just ignore them. Robert's a good friend and you will make more, but choose them wisely."  
  
"I will," she promised. "And thank you so much for my owl."  
  
"He's a beauty," her dad smiled. "Have you named him yet?"  
  
"I thought Balthasar," she said, tipping her head to one side and glancing over his shoulder at the owl. "I looked it up in Mum's book and it means 'bearer of good news', so I reckon that's a pretty good name for an owl who brings my post."  
  
"Sounds right to me," her dad said, getting to his feet and ruffling her hair. "Do you think you can sleep, or would you like some hot milk?"  
  
She pulled a face at the thought.  
  
"I'll be fine," she said firmly, wriggling down beneath the covers.  
  
"I thought you would be," her dad chuckled, tucking the sheets in around her like he had when she was a tiny girl. "We do love you, never forget that." With a final kiss on her forehead he was gone, the lights extinguishing behind him.  
  
Hope sighed into the coolness of the night and stared up again at the tiny stars glimmering in the blueness of the night. The future was out there and the knot of nervous excitement in her stomach refused to go away. She was on the verge of going to Hogwarts. She'd walk down the same corridors that the rest of her family had, play Gobstones in the common room, work in the library and maybe even play Quidditch on the pitch.  
  
Eventually her eyes drifted shut and she slid into happy dreams of feasts and Quidditch matches and Gryffindor scarlet and gold. 


	2. The Sorting Hat

Chapter 2: The Sorting Hat

Early morning sunlight filtered through the light cotton curtains that sighed and billowed in the breeze. Hope blinked sleepily at her clock, her heart giving a sudden fluttering lurch when she realised what day it was. It was early yet, but she couldn't settle down again. If she felt this bad at six in the morning, goodness only knew how she'd be feeling by the time she was at the station that night, let alone arriving at Hogwarts. The thought of the great school made her heart do a funny kind of flip-flop and her nerves plummeted suddenly into her stomach. 

She clambered out of bed and pulled back the curtains, looking out over the garden with a bit of a sigh. She'd played in that garden for as long as she could remember, and various toys were still littered across the landscape. Sam's bright red train that Mum had enchanted chugged an endless circuit around the lawn with a hiss of steam blowing out behind it. It still travelled slightly faster these days than Mum had intended it to and although Hope had tried to look innocent when the formerly sleepy railway had metamorphosed into a runaway train plunging down steep inclines and careering around sharp bends, somehow they'd known it was her.

Magic was a funny thing really. It wasn't real work like learning Maths or History that she had done at the tiny village school, it was part of you like your fingers or your eyes. Magic had always happened around her: detested porridge turned into crispy cereal on the breakfast table when Mum wasn't looking, the frilly blue dress that Granny had bought for her mysteriously burst into flames before she could wear it and Crookshanks had sprouted ginger feathers once after he'd scratched her when she sat on him. 

Sam had started showing some signs of magic too, but it wasn't like hers. As Dad has said last week when she'd caused a hailstorm of Every Flavour Beans in the kitchen, the sooner that she learnt to control her magic, the better. It hadn't been the deluge of sweets that had bothered him, but the fact that all she'd managed to produce were liver flavoured ones, which were so disgusting that none of them would eat any.

"You should be able to produce a decent assortment after a bit of teaching," Dad had teased, neatly clearing up the mess with a swish of his wand. "It could be a handy sideline for future Christmas presents if you can manage a gift box as well. But Hope, all I ask is that if you're going to try this again, just remember that your old dad likes the strawberry ones."

Still feeling incredibly restless, she pulled on some old clothes and looked around. Balthasar hooted sleepily at her and tucked his head back under his sooty wing to doze through the day. Her prized broom twitched enticingly and looking at the glorious morning, Hope just couldn't resist. Mum and Dad were too overprotective and anyway she wasn't going to do any harm. 

Silver Lightning 511 in hand, she slunk through her bedroom door and onto the shadowy landing, holding her breath to listen intently for signs of life. Mum and Dad's bedroom door was ajar and peeking round she could make out their shapes curled up together in the large bed with Dad's arm wrapped round Mum and the baby. Their heavy, regular breathing filled the air and she ducked back out of the room to silently head downstairs.

She smiled happily as she tiptoed into the kitchen, already anticipating the coolness of the garden and the thrill of soaring through the air. A low and rumbling growl reverberated from over by the sink. She tried to creep onwards, but the growl became louder and more insistent.

"Shhh!" Hope whispered, reaching over for a little glass jar and with a slight shudder she extracted a spider. "You'll get me caught if you're not careful." 

Dad's plant nodded its cherry-red bloom, seeming to understand and the growling ceased. She offered it a wriggling spider and its petals curled backwards slightly, revealing razor sharp white teeth.

"Just one," she muttered anxiously, her eye on the door back into the hallway, fearing they'd be discovered. "I'll give you another one when I get back if you're quiet, ok?"

The plant rustled its leaves and jerked its blossom, pressing affectionately into her hand. She tickled it lightly and the red flower leaned backwards clearly loving the attention and wanting more.

Finally, she slipped away and into the freshness of the day outside. Mounting her broom, she swiftly kicked off and soared off up past her bedroom, loving the whoosh of the wind against her face and the familiar tugging at her hair. She flew up above the house and down their lane, lingering for a few moments to watch the bustling beginning of the day on Hogsmeade High Street. There was the greenish sparkle of Madam Rosmerta overseeing the delivery of barrels for the Three Broomsticks and the stomach-rumbling smell of baking bread emanated from the little shop two doors down where Mum always bought them gingerbread men for afternoon tea. 

Mrs Crockford caught sight of her and waved, her soapy cleaning cloths already skating across the tiny panes that fronted Honeyduke's making them sparkle and glint in the sunlight. Hope grinned and waved back. That was one place she was definitely going to miss, even if Uncle Ron had bought her a big packet of her favourite sugarquills to counterbalance all the heavy books Aunt Hermione had given her. 

She spun around and flew quickly past Robert's house to the war memorial on the village green, the granite monolith a sober reminder of all those who had died to bring them peace. They'd played there often enough, learning to read by tracing the golden letters with their fingers: Will-i-am Weas-ley. Onwards and upwards, over the tiny wiggledy school building and playground that had been her world to the very edge of the Forbidden Forest.

Hope hovered steadily above the trees, staring out across the bluey-green jungle at her feet to the solid towers of the castle beyond. Her eyes curiously raked the jumble of steeples and turrets, finally finding the one that her dad had once pointed out to her as Gryffindor Tower when she had been much smaller and he'd flown with her held tightly on his broom. Hogwarts stood as it always had, a firm piece of unchanging history: she'd been born there, and now it was time for her to return. 

Excitement fluttering inside, she wheeled away, curving through the air, the wind whipping through her unruly hair, sending it blowing out behind her. The rush of adrenaline increased as she leant forwards on her broom and plummeted downwards, spiralling faster and faster towards the ground. Merely feet away from impact, she pulled her Silver Lightning out of the dive and zoomed upwards again, chuckling to herself. She didn't know how she was going to survive without this at school. Flying was about as important as breathing.

Slowing slightly, she dropped again, zigzagging regretfully downwards over their roof and landing lightly on the lawn. She glanced at her watch and gulped: she'd been gone for far longer than she'd intended. Hurrying across the garden, she dodged around the bushes and over the rail track until she reached the kitchen door. She pressed her ear to it, listening for any sound of movement, but all was still. Her heart pounded away inside her, the rhythm drumming its beat in her ears as she pushed the door open, wondering if she could sneak back upstairs without discovery.

"And where do you think you've been?" a furious voice greeted her. 

Hope winced and looked up apologetically at her mother. Her face was flushed with anger and her brown eyes were glittering furiously at her daughter.

"No note, no broom, no nothing. _Anything_ could have happened."

"But Mum…" Hope tried to explain.

"Don't you 'But Mum' me, Hope Potter," her mother snapped back. "What _did_ you think you were doing?"

Hope lowered her head and stared at the stone flagged floor of their kitchen. She knew she shouldn't have gone out without permission, but it had been for a good reason.

"I'm not sure what Hope was doing," a lower, calmer voice interrupted from the doorway, "but you do know that you reminded me of your mother just then? I'm just waiting for the bit about taking the car without permission."

There was a pause and Hope cringed away, waiting for the explosion to happen. Instead there was a weak chuckle.

"That's better," Dad said quietly. "Getting into a state isn't going to help, is it? Come on and sit down. This isn't doing you or the baby any good, and you know what the doctor said." He manoeuvred her into a chair by the fire. "I'll get you a cup of tea and Hope's about to explain where she was this morning." There was a bit of an awkward pause and he looked at his daughter. Hope squirmed. She'd prefer her mum's yelling to her dad's disappointment in her any day.

"I'm sorry for upsetting you," Hope said honestly, perching on the arm of her mum's chair. The dark brown eyes softened and Hope could see just how worried her mum had been. "I couldn't sleep, so I took my broom out for one last ride before I go to Hogwarts, that's all. I didn't go far."

"Far enough to get us worried," her dad commented, making her suddenly feel very guilty. He Summoned eggs through the air and began to cook breakfast without another word. Soon the kitchen was filled with sizzles and tantalising smells that made her feel hungrier than ever. Sam wandered in with his dressing gown untied, blinking sleepily and clambered up onto a chair at the table waiting expectantly for food. He stuck his tongue out at his sister and she glared ferociously at him. The minutes ticked by. Still nothing was said. Hope's insides writhed. She couldn't stand it any longer. Any punishment had to be better than waiting.

She crossed the kitchen and purposefully turned on the taps, letting the water drum and swirl round the stone sink. Soap bubbles rose and glistened beneath her touch, and when it was full, she grabbed a cloth and began to scrub her way along the surfaces. She hated cleaning, but it was better than sitting there feeling rotten about everything. She'd do the floor as well if she had to.

The clattering of the morning went on around her and when she glanced up at one point to swipe away the irritating lock of hair that insisted on tumbling into her eye she could have sworn she'd seen her dad winking at her mum Yet when she looked again, their faces were sober as ever. Her dad left the kitchen to get ready for work and she tackled the hob with renewed vigour, her cheeks glowing with the effort.

"Better have your breakfast while it's still warm," her mum broke through the silence at last. "We just don't want anything to happen to you, that's all." She chuckled suddenly, "Although I have to say, I think you do a better job of cleaning the kitchen than I do, so maybe you'll need another punishment at Christmas and you can do the bathroom as well."

"I'm sorry," Hope muttered. "I really am, Mum. I just…"

"Couldn't resist," her dad finished off, winking at her. He was leaning against the door frame fastening the last buttons of his Quidditch robes. "Make sure you don't do that when you're at school because McGonagall gives the nastiest detentions if you're caught. Although if you're careful, I suppose…"

"Harry! Don't encourage her! She's worse than you are."

"Right then," her dad said cheerfully, "Hope's got her packing to do, Granny's coming over to take Sam for the day and you," he turned to his wife and grinned wickedly at her, "you are going to take it easy for once and no arguments. I'll be back in time to take Hope to the station tonight." 

Grabbing a final slice of toast he Disapparated into thin air with an audible pop.

***

Fastening her black Hogwarts robes with trembling fingers, Hope took one last look at herself in the mirror. Glistening green eyes stared curiously back at her, her hair cascading haphazardly all around her in stark contrast with her smart grown-up robes. Her face looked pale and nervous and she gave a half-hearted grin.

"That's better, dear," he mirror wheezed. "Very nice indeed."

Tossing her hair back over her shoulders, she cast her eyes around her bedroom for the final time, checking that she hadn't forgotten anything important. It seemed so different now that her clutter was mostly packed away in the large wooden trunk propped up at the foot of the stairs, almost like she didn't exist here any more. A little pang welled up inside her, but she brushed it impatiently aside and marched to the door. This was it. She was actually going to Hogwarts.

Dad was waiting for her downstairs by the front door, the house oddly quiet for once. He grinned up at her and nodded his approval.

"Got everything then?"

"Think so," she quavered, her voice not sounding quite like her own.

"We can always owl things up to school if you haven't," her mum emerged from the living room, her eyes shining brightly in the candlelight. "Be good and have fun this term. It's not long before you'll be home for Christmas."

Hope rushed over and hugged her tightly. This was going to be very strange: she'd never been away from her parents before apart from the odd night she'd spent with Granny and Grandpa at The Burrow. A tiny whispered 'Love you,' in her ear and she was bustled out of her home and down the steps into the darkness of the lane beyond. She clutched Balthasar's cage in her hand and cast a last glance back over her shoulder at her mum, who was standing in the warm glow of the doorway watching and waving until they turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

She had to hurry to keep up with her dad, his long strides much bigger than her own. Her trunk bobbed in the air behind them as they rattled along the main street and wordlessly took the lane that led to the station. The gravelled pathway hissed and crunched under their feet and with every step she took, Hope felt the excitement mounting inside her. She'd write to Granny and Grandpa in the morning and tell them all about this: they'd want to know everything. It felt ever so grown up to be thinking of sending her own owl out with a letter and Hope half skipped with delight.

Dad glanced down at her and grinned.

"Not long now," he said. "You'll have a great time tonight with the start of term feast and everything. The house elves do all your favourites, you know and I'd not be at all surprised if there was some sticky toffee pudding tonight."

Hope smiled back, the excited fluttering in her stomach making her feel too queasy to be able to think about eating anything at all. She climbed the stairs up to the brightly lit station platform and Balthasar's cage banged carelessly against her leg. The owl hooted, but Hope took no notice. The others were there already, standing in a little black huddle, chattering away at the far end of the platform. She could see Robert's fair hair shining in the lamplight, a restless shuffle betraying his nerves.

"Dad," a lump thickened in her throat.

"Time to go," he said softly, prising Balthasar's cage from her hand and leaving it with the rest of the baggage on the platform. She burrowed her face into his robes, listening to the reassuring thud of his heart as he hugged her tightly. "You take care, do you hear me?"

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak and with a final grin, walked unsteadily along the platform to where the others were huddled. She glanced back over her shoulder, her dad nodded encouragingly and then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

"Hope," Robert edged over to her. "Was that an _owl_ you've brought with you?"

"Yeah," Hope admitted. "Dad bought him for me in Diagon Alley yesterday. He's really cool: the owl, I mean, not Dad. Although Dad's not so bad either most of the time, not as far as parents go anyway."

A shrill whistle pierced the air, hissing and rumbling noises growing ever closer. Billowing steam clouded above the distant trees, barely visible through the darkness. Hope craned her neck, desperate to catch her first glimpse of the Hogwarts Express. She'd heard so much about it, and now at last the splendid scarlet engine rattled into view, panting to a wheezing hiss at the station platform.

The doors clashed open, and suddenly the whole platform was alive with a babbling torrent of voices. Hogwarts robes cascaded out of the train like a series of little waterfalls amidst laughing and joking. Hope suddenly felt very small and insignificant. She shrank backwards until she heard a familiar voice.

"Firs' years? Firs' years this way. C'mon now. Firs' years?"

Hagrid.

She exchanged grins with Robert. All of the Hogsmeade children knew Hagrid. He was a frequent visitor to the village, most often found in the Three Broomsticks and occasionally unconscious on the Potter sofa for the night afterwards. She adored the friendly giant, and when she'd been very tiny she wondered if she'd find birds nesting in the wild tangle of his beard. She could even remember practising on him when she was learning to plait hair, and his massive rumbling laugh when she'd tied pink ribbons in it.

"Hello there, Hope, Robert," Hagrid nodded, with a beaming smile at the two of them. "Don't jus' stay there. Firs' years this way. We need to get across that there lake."

Hope nodded, and with a nervous glance at Robert, they joined the group of smaller children and trotted after the swinging lamp held high above their heads, through the darkness and downwards. They followed the steep path, clambering and slipping on stones. The trees grew thicker all about them.

"This is ridiculous," a raven haired girl with a lofty voice said. "Why can't we go in the carriages in a civilised manner with the rest of the school?"

Hagrid halted suddenly and swung round, his bushy black beard seeming to bristle with indignation.

"Yer quibblin' with tradition then?" he asked fiercely.

The girl shook her head and fell back in line, with some angry muttering under her breath. Hope glanced at Robert and raised her eyebrows.

"I hope she'd not put with us," he commented as they clambered aboard the tiny rowing boats that tipped unsteadily in the water until they settled in the stern. "Wow!"

It was indeed 'Wow' and Hope watched in awe as they floated across the lake, getting ever closer to the castle, majestically perched on the high cliff above them. Moonlight glistened on the ripples in the water and she seemed to be holding her breath as finally the boat floated through a canopy of ivy into the darkness beneath the castle itself. The boat drifted to rest in a tiny harbour and they scrambled out on Hogwarts soil. She was here.

"C'mon now," Hagrid encouraged, setting off through some underground passageways at a brisk pace. Hope hurried after him, Robert by her side. Their feet echoed up the passageways hewn into the rock upon which the castle stood and they eventually stumbled out into the night air, gasping for breath on the lawns before the castle itself.

"Everyon' here?" Hagrid boomed. They all nodded, far too scared even to speak as Hagrid raised his fist and pounded on the castle door.

A distinguished looking witch in deep purple robes opened the door and nodded to Hagrid. Her lips were set in a stern line, and as soon as she began to speak Hope realised who she must be.

"Professor McGonagall," she hissed in Robert's ear. She caught Professor McGonagall's eye and felt herself begin to flush. If Dad was right, then Professor McGonagall wasn't a good person to get on the wrong side of. 'Nice one Hope,' she reproached herself inwardly. 'Just get off on the wrong foot, why don't you?'

"The Sorting Ceremony will begin immediately," Professor McGonagall explained crisply as they all gathered round her, staring in awe at the splendour of the entrance hall. "The Sorting will divide you into your houses," Professor McGonagall continued. "As many of you will know, there are four houses at Hogwarts, "Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin, and whilst you are here that house will become like your family…"

Hope's attention wandered as Professor McGonagall droned on. The ornate marble staircase wound its way upwards, and she craned her neck trying to see what lay beyond it, but to no avail. Hundreds of ancient portraits lined the walls, moving around like their photographs did at home. These weren't people she knew, but she had to admit that they were looking rather bored at Professor McGonagall's talk as if they had heard it hundreds of times before, which they probably had. She'd heard all about the Fat Lady in the pink dress guarding the Gryffindor Common Room, and that was one portrait she couldn't wait to see.

"As long as I'm not in Slytherin," Robert muttered to her as they were led towards the huge oak doors at the far end of the entrance hall. "Anything else would do me fine."

"My family have always been in Gryffindor," Hope said, feeling her knees dissolve as hundreds of eyes turned to stare at the new first years. "Can you imagine what it would be like if…?" 

"Don't be daft," Robert whispered back. "Where else are you going to go?"

They formed a line and followed Professor McGonagall down the centre of the room, down the full lengths of the tables, which were crammed with curious faces. The Gryffindor table was on the left, she remembered, and gave a quick glance towards it. They didn't look too bad, she supposed. The tables before them were laden with splendid gold and crystal, glimmering brightly as they reflected the light from the hundreds of candles floating overhead beneath the velvety sky. There was a gasp of admiration from the small brown-haired girl beside her.

"The ceiling's enchanted to make it look just like the sky outside," Hope found herself whispering an explanation. She'd actually read about it in _'Hogwarts: A History'_, but there was no way on earth she was going to admit to doing _that_ in public.

They gathered around Professor McGonagall in front of the staff table, not too far from the sorting hat itself. It was just like Mum and Dad had described it really: dirty and ragged with a few patches here and there to cover the worst of the damage. Dad said it had saved his life once, although Hope wasn't too sure how a hat had managed to do that.

There was a hushed silence and the hat opened what appeared to be a mouth, down near the brim and began to sing:

_Some thousand years or more ago_

_The school founders bade me choose_

_By instilling in me their values_

_From their heads down to their shoes._

_The task was set that I must fit_

Witch and wizards in a house As the Founders did before me 

_Turning new brains inside out._

_Hardworkers loved by Hufflepuff_

_Will soon find a ready home_

_Those who toil will reap rewards_

_There's value in what is sown._

_A searching mind is vital_

_To those lodged with Ravenclaw,_

_The eager thirst for knowledge will_

_Be ever knocking at your door._

_If you have courage of a lion_

_And the chivalry of a knight,_

_Make your home in Gryffindor_

To always strive for right. There are those who always need 

_Some way to leave their mark:_

_Ambition, drive and talent_

_Sets the Slytherins apart._

Welcome to Hogwarts those of you 

_Who've never been here before_

_Don't be afraid, and step right up_

_To be sorted in houses four._

With a little flourish that could only have been a bow, the hat stopped singing and twitched expectantly on the little stool it was perched on. Professor McGonagall unrolled a large parchment scroll and regarded the first years over her glasses. 

"Angus, Fraser," she called, raising the hat and gesturing to the stool. 

A small dark haired boy stumbled forwards, tripping over them hem of his gown. Hope watched in wonder as the hat seemed to sway a little on the boy's head before calling out in a loud voice,

"Ravenclaw!"

A thunderous burst of applause greeted this news and the boy trooped off to sit on the table second from the left with what Hope presumed must have been the other Ravenclaws.

Slowly the line of terrified first years was whittled down, and Hope allowed her eyes to roam across some of the staff table. A man with greasy black hair that was beginning to grey, a short dumpy witch with rosy cheeks and frizzy curls and an elderly wizard wearing formal red robes who was watching the sorting with interest. She recognised him as the Headmaster at once, from some photographs she'd seen in _The Daily Prophet_.

Dad had explained that after Dumbledore had died, Professor McGonagall had taken over for two or three years, rebuilding the school and re-establishing it in the way that Dumbledore would have done himself. She hadn't wanted the job in the long-term, preferring teaching too much, and so the governors had appointed this man, Aelric Circinus to step into the void. His face broke into an approving smile as 'Luna, Mariella' was sorted into Gryffindor.

"Miles, Robert," Professor McGonagall's crisp tones broke through Hope's thoughts. Robert gulped visibly, glanced at Hope and then crept towards the hat. Hope bit her lip, wishing with all her might that they'd get put in the same house together.

"Gryffindor!" the hat bellowed. Robert's shoulders sank with relief and he grinned at Hope before heading over to the welcoming shouts from the Gryffindor table.

The line was growing shorter now and her heart was beating more quickly. More and more of those around her were sorted until there were barely any of them left.

"Parkinson, Priscilla," Professor McGonagall called.

The haughty raven-haired girl mounted the steps and swivelled round to sit on the stool. The hat descended on her head, appearing to consider carefully where to place her.

"Slytherin!" it shouted.

The Slytherin table whooped and called her over to them, welcoming her into their fold. Hope sniffed disparagingly. Like Uncle Ron always said, there hadn't been a witch of wizard who had gone bad that wasn't in Slytherin. It didn't surprise her one little bit that Parkinson had ended up there.

"Potter, Hope."

Heat rushed into her face as people began to whisper, point and stare. She tried her best to ignore them, but it was difficult. Heart drumming uncontrollably in her chest, she forced her legs to move and somehow she made it to the stool. She sank downwards and suddenly the brightly lit room was plunged into darkness as the hat dropped down over her head.

"Hmm," a voice said in her ear. "How very interesting. An interesting Weasley and Potter combination with a little something else thrown in for good measure it seems…"

"What?" Hope was puzzled but the hat seemed to ignore her.

"No lack of bravery," the voice continued thoughtfully, "and there's a real drive to succeed, no doubt about that, I can see it here in your head. And this power, how very fascinating, I've never seen anything quite like that before. Dear me, it seems that you could achieve great things if you learn to harness it. Very great indeed. Add to that your undoubted talents and I suppose in that case there's only one place for you and that has to be…"

"Slytherin!"

She winced as the hat was lifted swiftly back over her eyes and she encountered the bright light in the Great Hall. A dull applause met her sorting, and she blinked stupidly. No. No, this was all wrong. It couldn't be. It _had_ to be a mistake. How… _Slytherin_? But…?

"Over here, Potter," Professor McGonagall steered her kindly in the right direction, a strange look appearing in her eyes. Could it be pity? Hope's stomach recoiled suddenly as if she was going to be sick. This couldn't be true. It just couldn't. It must be a nightmare.  This couldn't be happening to her. A sudden urge to run over took her. She had to get out of here. What would they all say at home? Mum? Dad? Granny and Grandpa? They'd be devastated. She'd let them all down. She couldn't stay here; she couldn't do this!

Yet her legs carried her over to the Slytherin table and she sat down onto the long bench, all those eyes still trained on her. She caught sight of Robert across the room, his face as shocked as she knew hers must be. He seemed so far away. The hot tears began to bubble beneath the surface. She set her jaw and held her head high, not daring to look or speak to those around her for fear she would break down and cry.

The rest of the evening passed in an aching blur. Chatter and exuberance went on around her. Food was devoured by the others on her table but she couldn't swallow, the lump in the throat just got bigger and bigger until she was choking on it.

Finally some prefect led the first years out into the entrance hall. She followed blindly, her heart following Robert up the great marble staircase, but her leaden legs wobbling down to the dungeons with the others. A stone wall slid sideways when the prefect addressed it, and they piled into the common room. Hope's only impression was one of a brightly lit underground room, from which they were led up a spiral staircase into the dormitories.

Her heart sank further. 

Her room. 

She was condemned to share this cell for the next seven years with these four other girls she didn't know and didn't want to know. Two of them were already nudging each other and pointing at her as if she were a freak. Her trunk was at the foot of a wooden four-poster bed over by the only window in the room, her things already brought there by the house elves. She opened her trunk and stared at the possessions she'd packed so proudly inside, seeing a certain flash of red and gold.

She couldn't bear it any longer. Pulling the green hangings around her, she huddled up on the quilt, fighting back the emotions until all had fallen silent around her. Then, and only then, did the tears begin to fall, wracking her small body with unbearable grief until at long last she fell asleep, Grandpa's Gryffindor scarf clutched tightly in her arms.__


	3. Trying to fit in

Chapter 3: Trying To Fit In

Hope pushed her hair back out of her eyes and blinked wearily. Her heart sank. She was still here. It hadn't been a nightmare at all. The dark green velvet of the hangings around her four-poster bed heralded the fact that she was indeed in Slytherin. Slytherin, of all places! She choked back a sob. Whatever were they all going to say at home? She couldn't bear this. She'd let them all down.

She snuffled her nose into Grandpa's Gryffindor scarf, breathing in the scent. If she closed her eyes and imagined hard enough it smelt like being at The Burrow with Granny in the kitchen baking cakes for tea. A sudden surge of homesickness washed over her, a longing to be in her own bed and then to have breakfast with Mum and Dad. She'd even put up with Sam picking his nose to be round the honey coloured wooden table in their kitchen this morning. Why couldn't things be the way they used to be? Why did they have to change?

Noises of stirring around her made her hastily stuff Grandpa's scarf under her pillow. She rubbed her eyes fiercely, making sure no traces of tears were left. It was bad enough to be in Slytherin, but to be caught crying about it like a baby would be a fate worse than death. She was a Potter after all.

Hope bit her quivering lip and steeled herself to face the day ahead. She could do this. She could. All she had to do was to keep her head down and give it her best shot at getting through the lessons, and then when the rest of them were doing their homework, she'd go and find Professor McGonagall. Dad had always said she was fair. Well, this wasn't fair, was it? The injustice of the whole situation stung bitterly. Professor McGonagall would sort it out. She _had_ to.

The brevity of grunted morning greetings told Hope that the others in her dormitory were getting up. She barely remembered their faces, let alone their names from last night. There was the raven-haired girl who'd been mean to Hagrid and her mousy friend: they'd been the ones whispering and pointing at her, and she had a vague recollection that there had been two others. Hope barely cared who they were. It wasn't as if she'd be there for long anyway, not if she could do anything about it.

Taking a final deep breath, she drew her curtains back and stepped from the security of her four-poster into the world outside.

The morning conversations hushed for a second as the four girls turned to stare at her. Hope fought back the heat that threatened to rush into her cheeks, bending quickly to rummage through her trunk for her clean uniform. There was no point in unpacking, she reasoned: it wasn't as if Slytherin could ever be home. She began to get dressed, thankful that she was right at the far end of the long row of beds so that she could studiously avoid any contact with the others.

The dungeon dormitory wasn't actually as bad as she'd feared last night. She'd always imagined Slytherin as a sort of underground torture chamber with rusty manacles chained to a damp wall, but this was surprisingly bright and airy. There was a large window, right beside her bed, cut into what must have been the rock upon which Hogwarts stood. She was about twenty feet above the Hogwarts lake, and the soft early autumn sunlight danced in golden circles upon the ripples of the water. A lazy tentacle stretched out of the water, and seemed to wave to her before it vanished swiftly beneath the surface once more.

Hope drew closer to the window, watching in amazement. Dad said he'd been in the lake once and that there were mermaids and all sorts of creatures in there. She'd read all about them, but it would be incredible to actually see them in real life. Shadowy shapes seemed to shift in the depths of the glittering lake, but she could make out nothing more. She sighed to herself, turned back to grab for her hairbrush and collided with a body right behind her.

"I'm so sorry," a soft voice with a hint of Irish brogue wafted through the air. Hope sprang backwards, her heart suddenly beating wildly. "I didn't mean to scare you. I'm Cora Maguire." There was a pause and Hope looked up to find a pretty girl with curly dark hair giving her a wry grin. "Well, it's Corona really. I don't know what the parents were thinking when they came up with that one, so I'm Cora to anyone who wants to survive." She chuckled, her bright blue eyes crinkling at the edges. "You're Hope Potter, aren't you?"

"Yes," Hope said tersely, gripping her hairbrush like a weapon. This girl wasn't going to be _nice_, was she? It was against the law of nature or something. Slytherins weren't nice: they just weren't. 

"Wow!" the girl said, with unconcealed admiration. "I've heard so much about you. It's amazing what you did when you were tiny. I bet you're _really_ good at magic and everything."

There was a disparaging snort from lower down the room and Hope could make out the snooty raven-haired girl from last night nudging her companion and pointing at them.

"However are we going to cope with having a celebrity in our dormitory," she exclaimed, casting a dramatic hand to her forehead and pretending to swoon. "Although if she's anything like my sister said her parents were like, she won't even know which end of her wand to hold."

Hope felt her temper beginning to rise, and choked it back. She briefly tugged the brush through her hair and then stalked in silence from the room, letting the door clash behind her and muffle the laughter that erupted in her wake.

She made her way slowly down the spiral stairs into the common room below. The room was busy with a myriad of students lounging in the chairs around the fire and chatting at a furious pace. They took no notice as a tiny first year scuttled through their midst and out onto the corridor beyond.

The twisting passageways hewn into the rock seemed to stretch for miles. Unlike the common room and the dormitory, these had no windows and no light but for the flaming torches hanging against the walls every now and then. She hurried onwards, suddenly feeling desperate to escape, her footsteps echoing hollowly down the corridor. More passageways, more twists and turns, and she was running now, away from the shadowy corners, away from the Parkinson girl in the dormitory and, most of all, away from all things Slytherin.

At long last the floor began to slope upwards and Hope stumbled breathlessly into a far more brightly lit corridor than those she'd been in before. The passageway here was flagged with quarried stone, rather than tunnelled into the rocks and bright pictures of food lined the walls. Suddenly, her stomach gurgled like a drain, reminding her that she'd eaten nothing the night before, and the gnawing ache inside increased. She crouched down for a second, trying to catch her breath.

"You'll feel better after you've eaten something," her Granny's voice said inside her head. Hope doubted it, but she knew better than to argue: even an imagined version of Granny could be pretty fearsome. A wave of students washed past her, glancing curiously in her direction. Hope gritted her teeth and followed at a distance. 

After a few minutes she found herself in the magnificent entrance hall from last night, with the beautiful marble staircase twisting upwards. Statues and portraits of people from long ago lined the walls, nodding good morning to each other and to the various students who drifted by in twos and threes on their way to breakfast.

The Great Hall was fairly quiet compared with the host of people she'd seen there last night. People seemed to be eating in their little groups and leaving when they were ready, rather than the whole school sitting down for a full meal together. That suited Hope perfectly. She made a beeline for a large empty gap on the Slytherin table, and slid into a seat, studiously ignoring everyone else in the room.

A rack of toast popped up on the table in front of her, causing her to gasp in surprise. She was used to food and crockery flying across the kitchen at home, but food appearing out of nowhere was rather impressive. She reached for a slice, and buttered it thoughtfully.

"How's it going?" a familiar, worried voice asked.

"Robert!" she exclaimed, seeing the fair-haired boy slip into the seat opposite her. "You can't sit here. You'll get into all sorts of trouble."

"I don't care," he said staunchly, helping himself to a slice of Slytherin toast. "You're my friend, and I hate seeing you upset like this."

"I'm not upset," Hope growled.

"OK!" Robert said hastily. "But there's got to be someone who can help you to be… er… even less not upset than you're not upset now."

Hope gave him a watery grin. She leaned in to explain her idea about talking to Professor McGonagall, but before she'd got very far she became acutely aware of a set of billowing black robes bearing down on them like an overgrown bat.

"And what have we here?" a silken voice sneered. "An interloper? If the hat didn't deem you fit for my house, boy, then don't presume to sort yourself here. It has far more brains than you'll ever have. Get back to your own house at once!"

Hope's eyes narrowed as she glared at the teacher. His black glittering eyes watched Robert's rapid departure back to the Gryffindor table, and then he turned, surveying Hope far more carefully than people usually did.

"He wasn't doing anything wrong!" Hope objected before she could stop herself.

"Indeed, Miss Potter," the glittering eyes darkened and the lips parted in a sardonic smile. "Your father, and his father before him, may have had a penchant for rule breaking when they were here, but I expect better from you. The Sorting Hat clearly thinks you have potential, despite your questionable genetics, and I would recommend that you don't squander your talents on fools. Good morning."

She glared furiously at his retreating back, speechless with anger. So that was Severus Snape. She'd heard a lot about him from Mum and Dad, and they were right, he was a git. Dad had some sort of grudging respect for the man, but why she couldn't fathom. As far as she could see, he was just another reason to get out of Slytherin as quickly as she could.

A timetable was thrust into her hand by one of the Slytherin prefects and she scanned it quickly. The day started off with Defence Against the Dark Arts, then History of Magic with Professor Binns. There was Potions with Robert and Gryffindor straight after lunch, and finally Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall at the end of the day. She tapped Professor McGonagall's name on her timetable thoughtfully. That was perfect. Once this was all sorted out then she'd owl Mum and Dad; they'd be worried if they didn't hear from her soon.

Feeling almost cheerful, she sat back in her seat and poured herself a cup of steaming tea. Perhaps everything would be all right after all.

Unlike the rest of her classmates, Hope found that she seemed to have an instinctive knack of finding her way around the school. Staircases moved on whim, but there was always some alternative route she could find, whether by ducking through a tapestry or through an arch or doorway that no one had ever noticed before, she always arrived at lessons promptly. She noticed the others giving her quizzical looks, but she shrugged it off. It wasn't as if she cared what they thought, she reminded herself, she wasn't going to be with them for much longer.

The morning dragged on for an eternity, and Hope could have sworn that her watch had actually stopped ticking in Professor Binns' class. That lesson had seemed to be a week long at least. Finally the afternoon came round, and it was with mixed feelings that Hope found herself standing in a cold corridor between Robert and a Slytherin boy, waiting for her first Potions lesson.

"It's amazing isn't it?" Robert whispered, his eyes wide in awe. "I don't think I'll ever learn all this magic in a million years."

The door of the dungeon classroom creaked open and the darkly robed teacher who'd insulted her this morning stood before them, his arms folded and his lips pursed disapprovingly.

"I suggest you stop your meaningless babble," he intoned loftily, "unless you're even more useless than the idiots they usually give me to teach. Come in, take your places, and touch nothing. Do I make myself clear?"

A rippled murmur of 'Yes Sir,' fluttered through the corridor. Snape grunted and moved aside to let them into his domain.

Hope set her books on a desk and grinned when Robert sat down beside her. Snape gave her a dark look, clearly disapproving of her choice of partners, but said nothing. He launched into a speech in a fairly bored voice about the art of potion making, his long fingers drumming every now and then on his desk.

Her attention wandered. The room was filled with jars and bottles. Complicated contraptions of glass and copper bubbled furiously at the far side of the room, and eerie pickled animals and other bits of things that Hope would rather not examine too closely lined the walls, their ghoulish yellow interiors illuminated by the torches flaming fiercely to give them light.

"Miss Potter!"

Hope jumped at the sudden noise and whirled to face Professor Snape, her heart thudding in her chest. What had she done now?

"As you appear to know everything so well already that you don't need to pay attention to my lessons, perhaps you could assist the rest of the class by answering some simple questions? For example, which potion has the ingredients of ground scarab beetle, sliced ginger root and armadillo bile?"

Hope gulped, her brain suddenly heading into overdrive. She'd heard of that one before. Her uncles had used that potion for one of the jokes they'd made for Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. Now what had it done?  
  


"It's a wit sharpening potion, Professor," she said quietly, her steady tone giving no trace of the squirming her stomach was doing inside. Snape's eyes narrowed.

"And what about skinned shrivelfig, sliced caterpillar and chopped daisy roots, completed with a dash of leech juice?" His tone was triumphant, but Hope never broke eye contact with him. She'd helped Uncle George make this one.

"A shrinking solution."

There was a murmur of surprise around the classroom.

"Five points from Gry-" Snape began and caught himself just in time. "From Slytherin. It seems, Miss Potter, that you are quite as much of an insufferable know-it-all as your aunt."

Hope said nothing, but inwardly was fuming. She didn't care about losing points for Slytherin, but the insults were almost more than she could bear. Robert kicked her leg reassuringly and they shared a quick grin, which quickly evaporated when Snape turned his head back in their direction.

They left the dungeon at the end of the lesson with piles of homework, and she said goodbye to Robert at the foot of the marble staircase. He had Herbology, and Hope was bubbling over with excitement about her Transfiguration lesson. She just couldn't wait. This was her chance to make everything right again.

"Hope! Wait a second!" Cora yelled after her, emerging from the dungeons right behind her. "Can I come up with you, please? I keep getting lost and you seem to know your way around pretty well."

Hope nodded briefly. Cora didn't seem so bad really, not that she was ever going make friends with a Slytherin, of course.

"I can't believe how mean he was to you," Cora chattered on as they climbed higher, and wandered along corridors milling with students. "Asking you all those questions. You showed him all right. How did you know all those things anyway?"

"Just picked them up," Hope shrugged, and took a sharp right turn that felt as if it would go in the right direction.

"Are all of your relatives witches and wizards?" Cora asked curiously. "My dad was killed in the war, so there's just me and mum at home. She's the only person I ever saw do magic before I came here."

"They're all magic," Hope said stiffly. She didn't want to think of her relatives right now, not when she was letting them down so badly. Cora looked a little hurt but the abruptness of her response, so she added, "I think Dad's got a Muggle aunt and uncle somewhere, but I can't remember meeting them."

They climbed a tiny rickety staircase and emerged from behind a heavy red curtain right beside the Transfiguration classroom with Professor McGonagall already standing in the doorway. She looked at them sternly through her glassed and pursed her lips before she nodded. "Come along, quickly now."

They scuttled into the classroom, and Hope headed for the desk furthest from the door. It would mean that she would be last out of the room, and that would be an ideal opportunity to accost her about the unfair sorting. To Hope's surprise, Cora sat down next to her and got her books out ready for the lesson.

Professor McGonagall was strict. The first few minutes of the lesson left no room for doubt about that in Hope's mind. The rules were clearly laid out and woe betide anyone who crossed her. Before she even knew what was happening, Hope found herself taking down notes and working far harder than she had ever done in her life just to keep up with the rest of the class.

Matchsticks were given out, and they were told to attempt to turn them into needles.

"Make sure you concentrate all your strength into it," Professor McGonagall instructed crisply. "It takes a lot of power to begin with."

"Bet you a galleon _she_ can't do it!" Parkinson whispered to her friend, just loud enough for Hope to hear. "She's all talk. You know the type."

"I wouldn't risk my money," the tiny mousy girl laughed.

"Miss Lambert! Miss Parkinson! Pay attention, please!"

The two girls were silenced, and Hope's fury boiled over. She'd show them all right. Concentrating all of her effort, she pointed her wand at the matchstick, thinking, willing, demanding that it change. The silvery colour of a needle filled her mind and she strained to do it. She could feel it moving beneath her touch. It was changing. She concentrated even harder. Yes! It _was_ changing! She felt the magic draining through her.

"A dagger?" Professor McGonagall's surprised voice came from behind her. "Good gracious, Miss Potter. I was only expecting a needle from you today."

Hope felt herself blushing furiously. She'd just made a real fool of herself, hadn't she? Before her on the table lay no needle, but a shiny silver blade with a glittering ruby stone embedded in the ornately crafted hilt.

"Now what about the rest of you?" Professor McGonagall said tartly, wheeling round to catch the culprits of the muffled sniggers. "Miss Potter has at least managed a transfiguration, and I presume the rest of you think you can darn socks with matches. A little more effort, if you please."

As the classroom cleared at the end of the lesson, Hope was slowly packing away her things, wondering how she could get rid of the patiently waiting Cora so she could talk to Professor McGonagall in private. Professor McGonagall solved the problem for her.

"Miss Potter. A word please."

Hope's insides lurched, and the quivering feeling she'd had in her stomach all lesson surged upwards, making her feel sick. She gave a half smile to Cora, who grinned back and shrugged before disappearing out of the classroom. Shaking from head to foot, Hope approached Professor McGonagall's desk. She swallowed awkwardly, trying to breathe as steadily as she could. 

Professor McGonagall watched her carefully for a moment and then her face broke into a very unexpected smile.

"Miss Potter, I've been teaching a good many years, but I've never seen anything quite like that before. Was that your first attempt at Transfiguration?"

Hope nodded mutely.

"It seems that you may well have the opposite problem to the one everyone else has at this stage. They are learning to find their powers and to strengthen their magical abilities, whereas your power appears to be already strong. You must learn to control it, before your magic controls you."

"Dad says something like that too," Hope whispered, her fingers clutching the end of Professor McGonagall's desk. "I used to do all sorts of things at home I didn't mean to do and couldn't control. He thought school would help."

"It will," Professor McGonagall smiled again. "Just don't expect to be like everyone else. It is more than likely that you've acquired powers other than your own from what happened when you were a baby in this very school. As for what they are, I couldn't tell you, but I'm sure they will become clear in time. Dumbledore expected great things of you, that little I do know: the rest of it is up to you."

"P-Professor," Hope chewed on her lip. "I wanted to ask you something."

"Go on," Professor McGonagall's face became serious once more.

"It's the Sorting Hat. It's got to have made a mistake. I mean it _must_ have. How can I be in Slytherin? It doesn't make sense, really it doesn't. Mum and Dad and everyone's been in Gryffindor for years, and I'm not any different, really I'm not. I don't want to be in Slytherin. I shouldn't be there. Please Professor, you've got to do something to help…"

Professor McGonagall held up her hand to stop the babbling torrent of confusion, and Hope choked back on her tears.

"The Sorting Hat has chosen you for Slytherin," she said calmly. "I agree, it's somewhat of a surprise, I was rather expecting you in Gryffindor this year. But it has decided that your talents can be used more effectively elsewhere. Slytherin is a very fine house, and some remarkable talent has stemmed from there."

"But I don't want to be there," Hope wailed. "I'd rather not be at Hogwarts at all than be in Slytherin. You've got to be able to do something. _Please!_"

"I'm sorry, Miss Potter," Professor McGonagall looked very sympathetic, but she shook her head firmly. "Once the Sorting Hat has selected you, then I'm afraid that there is nothing that anyone can do whilst you remain at Hogwarts."

Hope felt hot tears brimming in her eyes and she made her way to the door, the room blurring before her. There had to be something. So Professor McGonagall couldn't help her, but there had to be something else. She wasn't going to stay here. She wasn't a Slytherin, no matter what anyone said.

"There is nothing that anyone can do whilst you remain at Hogwarts." Professor McGonagall's words echoed around her head. 

Suddenly, she knew what she had to do, and gulping back the tears, she sprinted off down the corridor, around twists and turns and up a tiny flight of stairs to a heavy oak door. She twisted the heavy iron ring and slipped inside a circular stone room, filled with soft hooting noises.

"Balthasar?" she called softly, and her heart leapt to see a whir of sooty black feathers drifting in her direction. "Hello there," she whispered, stroking his feathers. He nipped at her fingers affectionately and she smiled, tears finally spilling over.

"I need you to deliver this," she said, pulling out a small piece of parchment and her quill. Mum and Dad would have to wait, this was far more important. She dipped her quill into the ink and began to write:

"Dear Uncles Fred and George…"


	4. A Call to Arms

**Chapter 4: **

**A Call to Arms**

Soft golden rays of sunlight glittered across the rippling lake, casting away the cold, hard light that steels the world before dawn. Nothing broke the surface, bar the wind that rumpled it like silk beneath its breath with promises of a beautiful day. All was still and silent for as far as the eye could see. In the forest that framed the boundaries of Hogwarts grounds, some of the animals stirred, yet the tiniest of Nifflers to the largest of monsters remained muffled securely with loved ones in burrows and lairs.

The castle too was asleep, all save one. She was crouched on the window ledge beside her bed, a tiny figure half-lost in her large white nightdress. Had anyone been watching, they would have seen her bright red hair glinting in the morning sun and a fierce hand scrubbing away what might have been falling tears; as it was, there was no one there. 

Hope sniffled quietly to herself and hugged her knees tightly to her chest. Watching the water was soothing somehow, and as the dark night faded to day her hopes rose that Uncles Fred and George might be able to help her. Pressing against the glass made her feel like there might be an escape from this terrible place: there had to be some way out, she just had to find her way through.

The heavy regular breaths of her classmates continued unchecked. A sigh and a rustle as someone further down the room rolled over and a soft snoring began again. Hope shivered as the chill of the window penetrated through her thin cotton gown, bringing with it the reality that it was almost morning and she would soon have to face yet another day. If Balthasar returned, she'd have to send him out with a note for Mum and Dad, who she knew would be frantic with worry about her by now, but even the thought of what her news would do to them made her stomach twist itself in knots. She hadn't got a clue about how she could even begin to tell them about something as terrible as this. They wouldn't be mad, but she could just see her dad's face when she sent the letter and his dreadful disappointment in her. 

A sob choked in her throat, and she stared blindly over the lake once more. Home was over there somewhere, so near she could almost touch it. If only she could talk to her dad and explain things, he'd fix it somehow.

Before the idea had even formed in her mind, she had her trunk open and was pulling on her clothes. Her robes were tugged over her head and buttoned haphazardly with trembling fingers, and with a final glance around her dormitory, she grabbed her wand and her cloak and tiptoed to the door.

The door creaked badly as it opened; Hope cringed away from the noise. She held her breath, fearing discovery, but even Parkinson, in the bed by the door, slept on. Moving stealthily onto the spiral staircase, she pulled the heavy wooden door closed behind her, the iron hoop of a handle cold against her sweating palms. Silently she padded down the worn stone stairs and slipped out of the archway into the shadows of the common room beyond.

Her heart was pounding so loudly by now that she was convinced she'd wake the entire house. What if someone was there? Would they try and stop her? Her eyes flickered nervously around the chairs and tables, seeing no signs of life other than a few books and pieces of homework some people had left strewn there from the night before. Even the fire had been damped down for the night and no house elf was yet there to stoke it again; blackened coal lined the deadened grate.

Throwing her cloak quickly around her shoulders, she made sure that the hood was covering her hair. She'd be identified from that alone if anyone saw her. Weasley red was nothing, if not distinctive, and another sigh escaped at the thought of her family. Why couldn't she have inherited the Gryffindor genes as well as the hair, then none of this would be happening? 

Hope made a break for it and shot through the centre of the common room and out of the door into the corridor before anyone came downstairs to stop her. 

Out in the corridor she could breathe again. She slunk along the edges of the passageways, taking care to keep to the shadows and away from the brightly lit torches that flamed along the walls. Slowly and carefully she made her way upwards, finally arriving on the edge of the grand entrance hall itself where the many painted figures were dozing in their frames. She dodged quickly behind a suit of armour, which turned to look curiously at her.

"I'm not here," she hissed.

The helmet creaked curiously and she shook her head and glared at it in her best impersonation of Granny when she was angry with Uncles Fred and George. That did the trick, and the armour creaked back to a standing position with a final noisy clank of irritation. Hope held her breath, her gaze travelling fearfully upwards. This was the main staircase and there could well be someone about on any of the floors above her, whether teacher, student or ghost. The thought of Peeves swooping down on her made her stomach do a queasy flip-flop. She'd come across the little poltergeist last night with Cora when he'd managed to empty a waste paper bin all over their heads. The memories of his little ditty still tugged at a nerve.

_It's rubbish young Potter_

_For that's what you are:_

_A Slytherin rotter_

_Will never go far._

"I'll show you just how far I can go," she growled beneath her breath. She wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself and made for the heavy oak door through which she'd come not that long ago, full of excitement to be here at last. And now here she was, tugging back the huge iron bolts with all her might, trying to get out again. The locks slid back and without stopping to look back, Hope slipped outside.

The air was deliciously crisp, the sort of morning where she loved to fly. The sunlight was growing stronger now and unless she was quick, she'd not make it beyond the Hogwarts grounds before the school was waking for the day. She could be stopped so easily on the way to the gates and there was nothing to hide behind either: just wide open grassland and a few sparsely scattered trees.

A grin suddenly spread across her face, and her heart skipped a beat. It was the perfect morning for flying, so why not borrow a broom? She'd be home before she knew it.

She sprinted along the gravel path, skirting the edge of the castle towards the place she knew the broom sheds would be. For once she didn't find her knowledge of the castle to be unnerving, but with every crunching step her anticipation increased. She would just get a broom and go. Mum and Dad would understand after she'd explained it all to them and they could punish her anyway they chose. She'd rather scrub the kitchen for the next fifteen years than stay here.

The door to the broom shed was locked and Hope tugged on the padlock with irritation. She should have read her _Standard Book of Spells_ like Aunt Hermione had suggested, there might have been something in there that could have helped. But she hadn't and it was too late to worry about that now. She could hardly go back into her dormitory for a spell book, could she? She took a step backwards and surveyed the building. It was a long, low stone affair with the padlocked wooden doors and a row of high windows glittering golden in the sunlight, one of which wasn't as twinkly as the rest. As she looked closer her grin widened. She could do this.

She scrabbled up the wall, using the uneven stone to lever herself upwards. Tiny footholds were good enough to painfully propel herself up those extra few feet and haul herself onto the windowsill. Her knees were sore from being scraped against the stone and one was starting to bleed where she'd knocked it, but the window was open. With a cry of triumph, she dropped inside.

Row after row of silent brooms liked the racks, some polished to perfection, others covered in ghostly dust from years of disrepair. She seized a nearby Nimbus. She'd ridden Uncle Ron's old one a few times, enough to know she could get up a fair turn of speed on it if she had to. It wasn't as good as her Silver Lightning, but she'd be home again with that soon enough. The main thing was that this would work to get her there and she knew from listening to hours of discussion between her dad and Uncle Ron that Nimbus really did make the most reliable brooms out there.

She mounted the broom and kicked off gently. It hovered a little way into the air and she nudged it forwards. Yes, this broom was just the thing. With a little pang at stealing someone's possession, she drifted upwards and opened the window wide. She'd return the broom later, she reassured herself as she felt the fresh air against her face. The broom shot forwards. She was free!

Her exhilaration was almost impossible to contain. The sun was shining as she soared up above Hogwarts, the wind whipping at her robes and blowing her hood from her head. Her vibrant hair whirled around her in a tornado of tempestuous life and she pressed the broom to fly faster, out beyond the castle and over the lake, far beyond the clutches of Slytherin. With a cry of joy she glanced over her shoulder and saw the windows in the castle rock being left far behind. She was almost there, just the final wall and then into Hogsmeade and home.

Home.

Her heart sang the word with joy and she leant forwards, willing the broom to go even faster. The perimeter wall was looming larger and larger. One final hurdle and she was clear and free. She bit her lip and zoomed purposefully towards it. Almost there. Almost.

With an almighty jolt, she was thrown forwards and somersaulted through the air, clinging desperately to her broom in an attempt to save herself. They spiralled downwards and crashed into the soft earth right by the wall.

Hope winced and opened her eyes, trying to catch her breath again. The world spun, so she closed them again and groaned. Her left hand tentatively made its way to her collarbone and she hissed in a gasp of pain: something was broken there all right. She had no idea what had happened, she'd come off her broom before, plenty of times, but never like that. It was almost as if she'd crashed into something, except she hadn't.

"Good morning, Miss Potter," a sardonic voice cut through her thoughts. "Perhaps you'd like to explain exactly what you're doing damaging the school flower beds, out of bounds and with an undoubtedly stolen broom at this early hour of the morning?"

Hope's eyes snapped open, blazing with fury at her insufferable head of house. She sat up quickly, but the pain made the world begin to spin again and she thought she was going to be sick. She wasn't going to be sick in front of this man, she wasn't…

"Come now!" Snape continued with his tirade. "There must be some reason for the little exhibition I saw just now from my rooms. Are you trying to show me your expertise on a broomstick in the expectation that you will be selected for the Quidditch team? Your father may have managed to talk his way into positions through ignoring instructions and doing whatever he pleased, but there will be no such rewards for you. Believe me, rules are to be kept while you're in Slytherin House. I expect none of this arrogant foolishness from you, do I make myself clear?"

Hope said nothing. Her temper was threatening to explode, and as she struggled upwards to stop him from saying all these horrible things, the pains shot up through her shoulder making her whimper involuntarily.

"You're hurt." It wasn't a question, it was a statement of fact. Hope winced again.

"I'm not," she said, defiantly with all the dignity she could muster, which was a little difficult when sitting in the middle of the school begonias.

"Don't be a fool, girl," Snape answered impatiently. "You came down fairly heavily when you crashed into the wards around the grounds. Of course, you wouldn't have seen them, or known they were there. What is it? Collarbone?"

Hope nodded miserably.

"Come with me," he said, grasping the broom and waiting for her to stand. She struggled to her feet, holding her arm in an effort to stop it from hurting so much. They walked in silence back up to the castle, trailing over the long lawns and up the castle steps to her prison.

She expected him to take her to his classroom to berate her further, but instead, they climbed the marble staircase and wound their way along a small corridor. Snape stopped and pushed a door open to reveal a long white room with a neat row of beds against the far wall. A matronly figure bustled towards them, clucking in horror at the sight of her. This was evidently the hospital wing.

"Dear me!" the woman exclaimed a little breathlessly. "No need to tell me who you are. It looks like you'll be needing your own bed in here every bit as much as your father did."

"You'll be all right now," Snape interjected almost kindly, leaving her in Madam Pomfrey's care. "Detention at eight tonight, and please remember that running away isn't any solution. I'd have expected a little more bravery from you than that."

***

Hope lay flat on her back, staring blindly at the canopy above her bed. Her collarbone felt absolutely find now, apart from a little twinge every now and then, and Madam Pomfrey had said that even that would be gone by tomorrow. The morning's absence from lessons had given her the chance to think very hard. The only obvious way out of the school seemed to be through the main gates, and there was virtually no chance of doing that. However, Hope Potter was never one to give up as easily as that, and her brain was currently very busy mulling over other possibilities.

"Where were you this morning?" Cora demanded, charging into the dormitory and slamming the door behind her.

"Hospital Wing," Hope said briefly, barely glancing in Cora's direction.

"The _hospital_ wing?" Cora sounded shocked, and Hope felt the mattress sag as the girl perched on the end of her bed. "Are you all right? What happened?" Hope suddenly felt quite guilty, she honestly hadn't meant to worry anyone when she was absolutely fine. She sat up and chuckled.

"Yeah, it was all my own fault really. I couldn't sleep so I nicked a broom and went flying. Snape caught me right in the middle of crashing head first into the flowerbeds. I mean, how embarrassing is that?"

Cora giggled. "I'll bet he wasn't impressed."

"Detention tonight and a long lecture on how Slytherins shouldn't break the rules." Hope rolled her eyes and mimicked her head of house's solemn intonation. "And believe me, Miss Potter, I expect none of this foolishness from you. Slytherins are meant to achieve great things." She pulled a face at Cora. 

"Well, it could have been worse," Cora said sympathetically. "You've not lost any points for Slytherin, and I bet if one of the other teachers had caught you, then they would have taken points away."

"Like I care about that," Hope said scornfully, before she could stop herself.

Cora's brow wrinkled in confusion. "How could you not care? Snape said that points will help us win the house cup. Surely you want our house to do well?"

"Forget it," Hope said, and swung her legs down from the bed. "It's just a detention with Snape, that's all. I'll get it over with tonight and it can't be as bad as all that."

"If you say so." Cora sounded dubious, and then her face lit up. "A parcel arrived for you this morning," she added, bending to rummage through her bag. She produced a small square box, tied with the brightest of red ribbons and passed it across to Hope.

Hope looked curiously at it, feeling rather disappointed when she recognised the handwriting. She had been hoping that her uncles would have sent her something a little bigger than that, but all the same, it was a start.

She pulled at the ribbon and as it unravelled between her fingers there was a rumbling noise and the box began to shiver and swell. It doubled in size and kept on growing. Cora gasped and scuttled backwards on the bed. Eventually the box reached the size of a picnic hamper and shuddered to a halt. With trembling hands, she lifted the lid, a devilish grin spreading over her face as she surveyed the treasures that glowed within. They had done her proud.

"What's all this?" Cora breathed, staring in awe at the tricks and jokes that lined the box.

"Special delivery from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes," Hope chuckled, unravelling the roll of parchment that lay on the top of the box. "They're my uncles, well two of them anyway," she added an explanation rather incoherently.

"You mean that shop in Diagon Alley?" Cora was sounding more and more amazed by the minute.

Hope nodded her head and studied the letter carefully.

_Dear Hope,_

_Your uncles are most delighted to see you've settled in already and are ready to take Gryffindor by storm. We've put together one or two little things that you should be able to have some fun with, especially in Potions lessons. We want to hear ALL about what you manage do to that greasy git. We've even put in some infernal insects, just in case you can break into Slytherin and infest their dormitories. Or failing that, maybe some reducing dust on their clothes might be worth a laugh?_

_By the way, avoid using the canary creams on McGonagall, because she'll know just who to blame for that. She didn't enjoy it much last time either, but we can't imagine why. _

_Send us a toilet seat and don't get caught!_

_Love_

_Uncle Fred and Uncle George_

_P.S. One last thing:  never mention this to Granny. Trust us on this one. Deny all knowledge of everything, even before she asks!_

A little pang caught at her heart. Breaking into Slytherin was hardly going to be a problem, was it? If only they'd known what she really wanted this box of tricks for, they'd have probably never sent them. She hadn't exactly lied to them, but she hadn't told them the truth either. 

She rolled the parchment back up and leaned forwards to examine her haul. Cora was wide-eyed in amazement as Hope inspected the sugar cubes that made your teeth fall out and then grow again, the mock-dragon's blood for Potions that would make anyone who tested the Potion breathe fire, the chocolate that turned you into a pumpkin when you ate it, the trick exploding snap cards that made their owner explode rather than the cards themselves and various other vials of mischief and mayhem.

"What are you going to do with all this?" Cora asked.

"You'll see," Hope chuckled airily. "What've we got this afternoon?"

Cora bent to her bag once more and pulled out her timetable. "History of Magic followed by Herbology," she confirmed.

"Right then!" Hope selected a tiny little jar and pocketed it securely within her robes. She closed the box up and was just about to push it under her bed, away from curious eyes when an idea occurred to her and she laughed. "I think our lovely Miss Parkinson might want to share this present, don't you?"

Cora squealed with delight, but sobered quickly. 

"Won't we get into heaps of trouble for this?" she said. "Mum'll go spare if I get into any bother."

"Only if they know it's us," Hope shrugged. "Besides, I'll never tell them you had anything to do with it anyway. I'll take all the blame if anyone guesses."

"No!" Cora exclaimed, shaking her head firmly. "Come on, let's do it together and we'll share the blame if anything happens. She deserves it. What've you got in there?"

A few minutes later and the two girls hurried out of the dormitory and giggled their way down to lunch, leaving behind a bed carefully made up with sinister sheets, designed to nibble the toes of poor unsuspecting sleepers in the dark of night.

The afternoon dragged past very slowly. Hope, to her relief, had caught Robert in the corridor after lunch and put plan two into motion. Hope was thankful that he'd just presumed that they were up to their regular mischief and hadn't asked any questions when she'd asked for his help to research the castle itself. She knew from experience that there were lots of little nooks and passageways that came out in the most unexpected places that didn't seem feasibly possible. She'd discovered a tiny door yesterday beside a stone dwarf on the second floor, and just by going through it, she'd found herself in the Astronomy Tower. 

She'd heard enough at home to guess that there must be other secret passageways in the castle, and some of them wound their way out of the school entirely. She'd already tried to find them. The problem was that part of the castle had been rebuilt shortly after she was born and her knowledge of the central core of the place didn't always match up with what she saw now. It really was confusing. And so she'd enlisted Robert's help to trawl through the tomes in the library to find out what they could about Hogwarts itself.

She was feeling fairly cheerful when she trooped down to Greenhouse Two with the rest of her group and she took her seat at a long table with Cora, a quiet brown-haired Slytherin boy and a couple of Ravenclaws.

Professor Sprout began the lesson, speaking to them all about the magical uses for fungi. She swiftly focused on the care of toadstools, and the shady, damp conditions needed for optimum growth.

They all had to collect some toadstools and in their trays had to produce the perfect environment for toadstool growth. They'd be working with the fungi for the next few weeks and it was a challenge to see whose toadstool fared the best.

Hope set to work at once. She knew she had to look conscientiously busy to get away with what she was going to do. She reached across the table to grab a handful of compost from the bag beside the Slytherin boy and he jumped backwards as if he'd been electrocuted and sent his stool crashing to the floor. 

"Belford!" Professor Sprout bellowed from across the room.

The boy muttered his apologies and picked up his stool, his face flaming with embarrassment. He turned immediately to his task, carefully following the instructions in his text book. Hope's own fingers scurried onwards, carefully planting long grasses and moss and dampening down the earth in preparation for her toadstool.

Her eyes flickered round the classroom carefully. Professor Sprout was talking to another couple of girls on the far side of the classroom. Everyone else seemed absorbed in their work. Carefully she reached into her robes and withdrew the tiny jar, shaking a few tiny seeds from it into her palm.

With her heart in her mouth, she planted them quickly in her pot and reached for the watering can. She stopped suddenly when she realised that Belford, the Slytherin boy, was watching her intently, his elbow sinking unnoticed into his tray of compost.

"What's the matter?" she said, far more sharply than she'd intended. "Have I got dirt on my nose or something?" She rubbed at it furiously and succeeded in smearing the grime from her fingers up the side of her nose.

The boy blushed again and stammered something incoherent, bending his head once more to his task. She heaved a sigh of relief, grabbed the watering can and tipped the contents quickly onto the buried seeds before her.

At first nothing happened, and Hope was just on the verge of digging the bottle out of her pocket again to read the instructions once more, when a light green shoot slipped easily out of the earth and slithered along it, looking very much like a tiny snake. A second, then a third and a fourth shoot appeared, all growing at a colossal rate. Leaves began to open and the stems stretched out, cannoning towards the ceiling and then spreading out across the classroom, barricading the doorway, wrapping round furniture and screaming pupils at an alarming rate.

Hope pulled Cora beneath the desk and they watched in amazement as the plant whipped around the table legs, imprisoning them in their little cocoon of safety. Parkinson was on her stool, screaming her head off until a large leaf clamped itself over her mouth and whisked her upwards towards the ceiling. Professor Sprout could be heard bellowing something about keeping calm above the din that echoed through the greenhouse.

As suddenly as it has started the plant shrivelled back, unbinding what it had tied in its clutches. The strong green stem retreated and Hope crawled back into the devastated room again only to find Professor Sprout staring at her tray and then turning to glare at her, with her arms folded.

"Ivy's Revenge, Miss Potter?"

Hope suddenly felt her throat go dry.

"I suggest you give me any other seeds you may have obtained. Whilst the growing properties of this plant are only temporary, they're not really something I want to have around the school. Where did you get them from?"

Hope hung her head. She wouldn't tell anyone that and the bottle's label would give away the source of the seeds without question. There was a very long pause.

"Very well, detention tonight. You can repair some of this mess you've caused."

"I can't," Hope blurted out.

"Oh you most certainly can," Professor Sprout responded; her kindly tone had completely disappeared.

"No, you don't understand!" Hope explained. "I've already got detention with Professor Snape tonight."

"Very well, I shall speak to Professor Snape about you. You cannot behave like this here, Miss Potter, and it is about time you leant that."

Hope said nothing, but inwardly smiled. She'd be out of here soon enough, one way or another.

***

At the appointed time that night, Hope found herself knocking at the door of Snape's dungeon classroom. Her robes were neat and tidy and she'd made a colossal effort to get her hair to lie flat. She opened the door at his command and put on her most innocent air, trying to look desperately sorry for her misdeeds.

Snape watched her take her seat through narrowed eyes and he laid his quill on the desk. There was a deadly pause that made Hope squirm.

"Explain yourself, Miss Potter."

The words were shot out like bullets. Hope stared back at him, the defiance building up inside. There was no explanation that he wanted to hear or that he would understand. She couldn't ever imagine this man knowing or understanding just how unhappy she was. Professor McGonagall couldn't help her, so what was the point in even trying to explain it all to Snape?

"Well?"

The room lapsed back into silence again. Hope kept staring back at her Head of House, saying nothing and simply willing for this all to be over. Snape sighed.

"Miss Potter, believe it or not, my job as Head of Slytherin House is to help you settle in. The sorting hat clearly thinks there is something more about you than it saw in the rest of your family; you've already shown yourself to be a more than capable student. Believe me, we will not tolerate the ridiculous behaviour you've shown today. Professor Sprout has spared no details in telling me what you did in Herbology and the very least you can do is give a full explanation of why you did it."

Hope still sat in stony silence. Nothing he could say would get her to admit to what was going on. She didn't want to settle in to his silly house and he couldn't make her. She watched Snape shake his head.

"Are you homesick?"

She glared daggers at him.

"Talk to me, girl!"

"I'm very sorry, Professor," Hope said in a carefully prepared speech. She scattered a small handful of Ivy's Revenge on his desk. "Here are all the seeds I've got left. Please can I do my punishment, and I promise I won't do the things I've done today ever again."

Snape shook his head in exasperation.

"Very well. Prepare the beetles eyes on the table over there and I'm sure the second or the third barrelful will give you time to think about your misdeeds."

Hope nodded and moved across the classroom, aware of the Potions Masters curious gaze following her. She set to work at once. Snape was right, this did give her plenty of time to think, not about what she'd done, but about what she was going to do next.

A.N. Thank you for reading – hope you enjoyed it! Thanks to Marian and Ami for looking over this chapter for me, and to Jo, who's a complete star and has offered to take on the task of beta reading for me on a regular basis! Hopefully she'll help to keep the plot straight for me as we go along…Obviously a couple of phrases were nicked from canon – they're the ones you recognise. Reviews appreciated as much as ever – go on, click that little link right there and spoil me ;)


	5. Plan B

Chapter 5  
  
Plan B  
The ruffling whir of feathers soothed the air as owls of every shape and size awoke for the night. Some soared off with missives into the darkening night, others flitted from perch to perch, hooting and quavering their news. The candles illuminated the tawny blends of feathers flecked with deeper browns and whites, and Hope leaned back against the chilly stone wall in the alcove, watching them enviously for a while. Flying was freedom, and yet here she was, bound to earth with no escape.  
  
Balthasar's mournful cry broke her train of thought. She reached out her hand and stroked his feathers, loving the soft ticklish feel of him. His deep amber eyes watched her, the unblinking steadiness making her feel guiltier than ever.  
  
"I am going to do it," she whispered, and unscrewed the lid of her bottle of ink. She smiled wryly at him. "I just don't know how."  
  
Hope stared at the blank parchment before her, wishing this letter would somehow write itself. This wasn't something she ever wanted to do, yet she knew deep in her heart that she had to. She wished it had been something she'd done, so that she could be punished for it and be forgiven, but this wasn't like that. They were going to be so disappointed in her, and there was nothing she could do to put it right.  
  
She took a deep breath, dipped her quill into the ink and, with an unsteady hand, she began to write.  
  
Dear Mum and Dad,  
  
I'm sorry I've not written before now, but I was trying to get something put right before I owled you. I'm so glad I've got Balthasar here.  
  
She glanced at her owl; his sooty feathers made him stand out amongst all the other owls, just like her Weasley red hair made her not fit in amongst the Slytherins. They were outsiders, both of them. She bit her lip and forced herself to continue.  
  
Robert and I got here fine, and I'm learning a lot already. We've had Potions, History of Magic, Herbology and Transfiguration so far. I think I made a mess of Transfiguration because we were meant to be changing matchsticks into needles, but I tried too hard and it turned into a dagger instead. Professor McGonagall was nice about it and says I've got to learn to control the spells and not put too much power into them.  
  
Uncle Remus isn't here yet, because it was the full moon when we arrived, but Professor Sinistra, who took his lesson earlier today, said he should be back in the morning. Lots of the teachers are just like you said they were.  
  
She pulled a face at the parchment. She adored Remus, and she knew that there was no way on earth he'd believe the way she'd been acting in the past couple of days. He'd see right through her and know what she was up to in about five seconds flat. She was going to have to work out a way round that one.  
  
I've made a new friend called Cora Maguire.  
  
Hope paused and looked at the parchment again. It was half covered in her scrawl and she hadn't managed to tell them the truth yet. This was all the stuff she knew that her parents wanted to hear, and the heaviness weighing in her stomach reminded her that she had to tell them the truth. She had to.  
  
.Cora's in Slytherin.  
  
The word hung there, the wet black ink glistening in the candle light like the coils of a snake. Hope shuddered. She closed her eyes and steeled herself to write the next words.  
  
Mum, Dad, please don't be upset with me. It wasn't my fault, really it wasn't. I've asked Professor McGonagall to help put it right, but she says it can't be done. The Sorting Hat must have made a mistake. I can't be in Slytherin too. I just can't. I don't want to be. I'd do anything to get out of here.  
  
Hope choked back a sob and snuffled her hand across her nose. She had to keep going; Gryffindors were brave, weren't they? Then she could do this.  
  
I'm missing everyone at home, but I'm ok here. I'm going to try and see the headmaster tomorrow and Aunt Hermione will be pleased that Robert and I are looking up Sortings in the library to see if we can find out what happened last time the hat got it wrong.  
  
Love from,  
  
Hope  
  
Tears were brimming in her eyes now. She swiped them away quickly, grateful that there was no one around to see. Before she had a chance to change her mind, she rolled up the parchment and tied it to Balthasar's leg. He hooted supportively, and she gave him a watery smile.  
  
"To Mum and Dad," she croaked, and watched as her beloved bird stretched his wings and powerfully propelled himself upwards to vanish into the darkening sky. "Please let it be all right," she breathed. "Please?"  
  
She turned and packed her things away, her fingers shaking with fear of what the letter in reply might say. She'd let them down so badly. Quickly, she threw her bag over her shoulder and, with a last wistful glance at the sky to where Balthasar had been, she slipped through the heavy Owlery door and back into the hub of the school.  
  
It was quieter than it had been during the day, and Hope was grateful for that. She wasn't really in the mood for people bumping and jostling around her. Now that the detention with Snape was done and her letter had been written, she was left to her own devices for half an hour or so before bed. It wasn't much time, but it was better than nothing.  
  
Hope rattled down an old wooden staircase and hurried onwards. She had a bit of reading that she needed to do before bed, and plans to work through for the morning. She picked up her pace, shivering as she entered the cold darkness of the dungeons but quickly descending further and further until she found the patch of damp wall that demarcated the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room. She wished they'd got something as nice as the portrait of the Fat Lady, but it seemed that none of the portraits had wanted to be the Slytherin guardian. Not that she could blame them for that.  
  
"Phoenix ashes," she said, and the door slid noiselessly open.  
  
The common room was busy. Gaggles of students clustered around tables, playing games and laughing. A few were scrawling onwards on their parchment, making heavy weather of their homework. Hope's eyes scanned the room, identifying quickly some of her year over by the lakeside windows playing exploding snap. Belford caught her eye when he was in the middle of his turn and flushed bright red. Before Hope had a chance to take another step, the stack of cards suddenly blew up and the other players dived for cover. As the smoke cleared, she could see Belford patting his hair ferociously to make sure all the flames were put out.  
  
Shaking her head at his clumsiness, she slipped through the room and up the stairs into her dormitory. The girls inside fell silent, as they always did, when she entered.  
  
"The incredible Hope Potter has seen fit to honour us with her presence at last," Parkinson announced loudly and pretended to swoon, flopping backwards on her bed so that her mousy friend, Miss Lambert, giggled. "Potter, your sheer intellectual talent in Herbology today was almost too much for me to comprehend."  
  
"Shut up," Hope growled and tried to stalk past the two of them to get to her own bed.  
  
Parkinson got to her feet and tried to block Hope's way. "Why should I? You're just really a waste of space, Potter. You shouldn't be here at all. I mean you can't even do Transfiguration properly."  
  
Hope glared at the taller girl, hatred swelling in her heart. "And you were so successful at it," she retorted scathingly. "I mean, you transfigured a matchstick into. ooh, let me think. into a matchstick! I mean, how incredible is that? I wish I had your talents."  
  
"At least I'm trying to learn," Parkinson snapped back. "My sister says your family is all so stupid that you never learn anything. That's probably why you're messing around in class so much. You're covering up not knowing anything."  
  
"Don't be stupid," Cora's soft brogue wafted across the room. "Hope knew all those potions, didn't she? That's more than I can say about you, Priscilla."  
  
"And who asked for your opinion?" Parkinson rounded on Cora. "Since when did you care about Potter showing off? She's only getting away with it because of some accident when she was a baby, or maybe your dad didn't hang around for long enough to tell you about that. Not that I can blame him; death's better than getting stuck with a mother like yours."  
  
"What?" Hope shrieked, getting ready to leap to her new friend's defence.  
  
"Just shut up all of you!" a new voice yelled. There was a swish of curtains and the fifth member of their dormitory was blocked from sight, having taken refuge behind the heavy curtains in her four-poster bed. Parkinson threw them a withering glare and pushed past Hope, knocking into her shoulder, as she stalked off towards the common room, Rose Lambert like a puppy at her heels.  
  
The door clashed behind them and Hope perched on the side of Cora's bed, looking at her with concern. Cora was lying on her stomach with her head buried in her arms, heaving in breaths like she was struggling not to cry.  
  
"She's a cow," Hope said with some feeling. She sat feeling rather awkward, not really knowing what to do or say until finally Cora rolled onto her side and looked up at her.  
  
"I suppose it was just a matter of time before she started on me," she said wryly and Hope could see that Cora was looking a bit red around the eyes from crying earlier.  
  
"What's she been saying?" she demanded.  
  
Cora shrugged. "Nothing I can't handle. Just stuff."  
  
"About your dad?" Hope was puzzled. "But he died in the war, didn't he? How can she get on your case about that?"  
  
Cora gulped. She sat up on the bed and crossed her legs, rubbing her face in her hands for a moment before taking a deep breath. Then she spoke in a whisper to prevent anyone from overhearing.  
  
"I can trust you, right?"  
  
Hope nodded. Of course she could. She might have been a bit of a git to Cora so far, but she actually really liked her, Slytherin or not.  
  
"I'll never mention it to a soul," she promised.  
  
"Mum and Dad met when You Know Who was coming to the heights of his powers. Mum was from Ireland originally, but she'd come across to Hogwarts for school and she'd never gone back again. She was working for the Department of Mysteries when the big split came in the Ministry, and she followed loads of others to fight with Dumbledore. That's when she met my dad.  
  
"Mum always told me it was love at first sight; soul mates, she said," Cora whispered. "They fought against the Death Eaters side by side, and Mum was even there when Dad was killed. She told me about it once. He died in her arms, you know?" Cora's voice trembled. "He never knew I was on the way. Mum only found that out later, but with the war and everything they hadn't got married. So that's why Parkinson's looking down on me. I'm illegitimate, and I suppose kids like me don't deserve to be in Slytherin."  
  
"That's just stupid," Hope said fiercely. "It doesn't alter who you are."  
  
"Doesn't it?" Cora said with a wry smile. "Maguire's my mum's name, not my dad's. Mum always says that Dad wouldn't have hesitated in putting things right if he'd lived, and he'd have loved me to bits. But I'll never really know now, will I?" There was a crack in Cora's voice. "Some days it feels like it's just Mum and me against the rest of the world."  
  
"What about your grandparents and your uncles and aunts?" Hope asked, thinking about her massive family. There wasn't room to turn around in her life without bumping into some Weasley or other.  
  
"Mum was an only child," Cora explained quietly, her head bowed. "Her parents died a long time ago. As for Dad's, I don't know. I think the disgrace of having an illegitimate grandchild must've been too much for them because I've never seen them and probably never will. It really is only me and Mum. So that's my life, and I'll understand if you don't want anything more to do with me. I mean you're Hope Pot-"  
  
"Don't talk rubbish!" Hope interrupted and shook her head vehemently. "You're my friend. That's all there is to it."  
  
Cora lifted her head, and swallowed visibly. "Friend?"  
  
Hope grinned. "Unless you'd rather I turn into Parkinson and start having a go at you because your pyjamas are the wrong shade of blue?"  
  
Cora chuckled. "Thanks," she said. "I didn't think you liked me much."  
  
"I do!" Hope blurted out, then she blushed. She poked at the green bedspread with her finger and traced the wavy stitching for a moment. "I've not been happy here either," she admitted quietly. "I suppose I'm missing home. I didn't mean to be horrid to you, because you've been really nice to me."  
  
"'S ok," Cora grinned. "You weren't that bad. I think Parkinson takes the biscuit for being vile."  
  
"More like the whole bakery," Hope muttered, and the pair of them burst into peals of laughter.  
  
Hope went to bed with a happier heart that night. In part it was because she'd done the thing she'd dreaded most and written to her parents with the news, but it was also because she knew now that she had a friend to help her through. Mostly she was happier with excited anticipation about the fate about to befall a certain Miss Parkinson.  
  
Hope drew the curtains before wriggling into bed gleefully. She propped herself up on her pillows to read the book she'd borrowed from the library. She could barely concentrate on the Charms because she was waiting with baited breath for screams and howls of outrage as the Savage Sheets began their night time nibbling. However, all was still, and after a while, Hope gave up on learning the spell that would make possessions vanish and reappear elsewhere and settled down for sleep.  
  
Her bed was soft, gently moulding itself to her body and lulling her to sleep in its warmth. She could hear the regular breathing of the other girls in her room and thought over the day. Bits of it hadn't been so bad after all, but she was still going to work on getting out of Slytherin tomorrow. She'd got a few ideas, and tomorrow she was going to.  
  
But the image of Snape eating a Canary Cream never quite occurred, because Hope Potter was fast asleep.  
  
A high-pitched scream of sheer terror broke through her dreams, rousing her to consciousness. Whimpers and shrieks pervaded the air and there was a distinct cry of "Mummy!" from the bed nearest the door. Soft footsteps scuffled round the bed and Hope could just about hear Rose Lambert's voice asking Parkinson what was wrong. Hope hugged her knees towards her body with excitement.  
  
"There's something in my bed!" Parkinson shrieked, sobbing uncontrollably. "It's a Bogeyman after my toes, I'm sure it is."  
  
Hope stuffed her pillow in her mouth to stop herself from laughing. She hadn't believed in that particular myth since she was about six. There was a snort from Cora's bed and that only made Hope's giggles worse.  
  
"There's nothing there, Pris," Rose was trying to reassure her friend and there was the rustle of the covers being hauled back. "You've just had a nightmare. Go back to sleep."  
  
There was a mumble and more rustling and slowly all five girls settled down to sleep. Hope grinned in the darkness, hugging her pillow towards her. "Sometimes, revenge was delicious. And sometimes," she thought as the squeals rang out again, "it was even better than that."  
  
*****  
  
The following morning dawned bright and clear, but the five girls stumbled groggily out of bed, yawning widely. Priscilla Parkinson looked wild-eyed and totally dishevelled compared with her normal pristine appearance. She wouldn't even go to the bathroom on their landing without Rose accompanying her.  
  
Cora and Hope quickly dashed down the room and giggled as they switched the sheets on Parkinson's bed back to their normal ones before Snape ended up being hauled in to investigate. They both knew already that not much would pass undetected under the Potions Master's large nose.  
  
"So it was you?"  
  
Hope stared at the girl who occupied the centre bed. She'd barely paid any attention to her at all so far. She had been so quiet that Hope didn't even know her name and they'd completely forgotten that she was there.  
  
"Yeah," Hope admitted. "Sorry about last night, but she kind of deserved it."  
  
The girl stared back in stony silence and then began to get dressed.  
  
"You're not going to tell Snape, are you?" Cora asked fearfully.  
  
The girl just shrugged and continued to pull on her robes. Once she was fully dressed, she turned and left without another word.  
  
"Weird," Hope breathed.  
  
"Maybe she's just homesick?" Cora suggested.  
  
"Maybe," Hope echoed, a nagging feeling beginning again in the pit of her stomach. "Come on, let's get a move on. I've got another idea."  
  
The morning passed fairly uneventfully, Hope being quiet for once and carefully planning the afternoon's surprises for the teaching staff. She'd managed to locate the staffroom and sneak in there unobserved before breakfast, leaving a little gift on the big table by the fire. Care of Magical Creatures, was the lesson she'd targeted today, but it was with a reluctant heart. She loved Hagrid, but this had to be done. Whatever the cost, she wasn't going to stay in Slytherin.  
  
As soon as morning lessons ended she had hurried out of Charms and down the corridor as fast as she could. She'd arranged to meet Robert in the library to see what they could find out that might be useful, but before she'd got very far, a familiar figure flagged her down.  
  
"Hope!"  
  
It was Remus. She smiled sheepishly up at him, wondering what he knew. The watchful grey eyes gave nothing away and she squirmed guiltily under his gaze.  
  
"Can we have a quick chat, please?" His tone was friendly and she obediently followed him into his office and closed the door behind her. The room was cluttered with books and a tank of Grindylows swam in a tank on the windowsill. She watched them idly for a few moments and then snapped her attention back to what was going on.  
  
"Sit down if you want," Remus suggested, rummaging through his desk looking for something. He produced a box of teabags and some biscuits and set his kettle on to boil. "Do you want a cup?"  
  
Hope shook her head.  
  
"How are you settling in?"  
  
Hope paused, weighing up the pros and cons of telling Remus the whole story. "It's not like I thought it was going to be," she confessed at last.  
  
"No, I can imagine some of it's been quite a shock," he said quietly. "Not just for you either. What's going on, Hope?"  
  
"What? What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean your turning half of the staff into canaries at morning break, and don't tell me that wasn't you, because I know it was. That's not the only thing you've done since you got here either. I'm not mad at you," he continued, seeing her defiance beginning to build. "Your grandad, Sirius and I used to get up to enough mischief here ourselves, but this isn't real mischief, is it? The Hope Potter I know is a lot more inventive than a few canary creams borrowed from Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes."  
  
Hope gave him a small smile.  
  
"I'm just finding it difficult, Uncle Remus," she confessed. "I'm going to start trying harder though." He looked at her through narrowed eyes and a smile played on his lips, telling her that he wasn't convinced in the slightest.  
  
"Don't let your parents down, Hope," he warned, and stirred some sugar into his tea. "You know how much they love you and worry about you. More importantly, you shouldn't let yourself down either; you're worth more than this."  
  
Hope nodded, feeling her stomach sink. It was a bit late for all that now, she'd let everyone down already. Much to her relief he didn't question her further and with the caveat that she should come back and talk to him if anything was bothering her, he began to discuss Quidditch.  
  
Eventually she managed to escape and ran along the corridor, plunging recklessly down the staircase at the far end, heading towards the library as fast as her legs could carry her.  
  
The library was silent but for the random rustle of heavy parchment pages turning. A few bleary eyes of older students looked up briefly from their work as she scuttled in, their heads bowing quickly and returning to the tasks before them. Hope's eyes darted anxiously around the tables and towering stacks of books that lined the room. Was he still here?  
  
Madam Pince was looking at her suspiciously over her tiny half-moon glasses. She paused with her wand poised over a large text that some student was about to borrow and opened her mouth to interrogate the newcomer. At this moment Hope caught a flash of fair hair out of the corner of her eye, and saw Robert's head appear from behind a row of shelves. He grinned, beckoned furiously at her to follow and then ducked out of sight again.  
  
"Homework," Hope whispered to Madam Pince, looking as innocent as she possibly could. "I'll just be a few minutes and I'll be at my next lesson in time."  
  
Madam Pince stared hard at her, and then nodded briskly, returning to her task of issuing the book. Heart in her mouth, Hope crept down the room, desperately trying not to draw attention to herself, and checking down each book-lined row for her friend. There was no sign of him down this aisle, nor the next.  
  
Suddenly, a hand reached out and grabbed her, pulling her quickly out of sight before the occupants of the room turned to see what had caused the squeak.  
  
"What are you doing?" she hissed.  
  
"I've got something," he whispered back, his face alight with anticipation. "Just shut up and come and look."  
  
Hope followed him to a darkened corner behind the stacks and when she saw a large tome that Robert had opened out on the floor, she dropped to her knees beside him to take a closer look.  
  
"What have you found?" she whispered. "Anything about the sorting?"  
  
Robert shook his head. "Nothing like that yet," he admitted, looking rather guilty. Hope wrinkled her nose at him and made him smile. He was her best friend and he'd spent all of lunchtime and most of last night looking for information to help her when he could have been having fun in the Gryffindor common room. Dad had been right when he said that Robert was someone she could trust.  
  
"So what.?"  
  
"Remember when you were asking about secret passageways out of the castle?" Robert sounded excited by his discovery and Hope nodded eagerly. "You think you can remember some, but they're not where you were expecting, right?" Hope nodded again. "I think this might be it. The castle was partially destroyed just after you were born. It tells you all about that in this chapter here. You even get a mention, so it must be a good book. See?" He pointed out her name and grinned wickedly at her. Hope swatted at him with her hand, but she missed as Robert dodged sideways and laughed at her. They were rewarded with an angry 'shush!' from a nearby sixth year and they fell silent once more. Hope grinned back at him, blushing furiously. Robert was pretty much the only person who could get away with teasing her about who she was. She could remember an older girl teasing her once at the village school, and the grown-ups had had quite a time of it trying to remove her tusks afterwards.  
  
"Does it say what happened to the passageways?" Hope whispered.  
  
"Robert shook his head, and his fingers unfolded the heavy parchment on the opposite page, revealing a plan of some sorts for Hope to examine. "What it has got is a map of the old castle and I thought we could compare that with the new one. If we use what you remember and work out where they might be on today's map, we're in with a chance."  
  
Hope watched the old castle staircases shifting on the parchment before her and her eyes roamed along line drawn corridors. Suddenly she felt quite at home. She concentrated hard, and could feel herself climbing up the marble staircase one sunny summer morning. Blinding rays of sunlight streamed through the arched window on the little half-landing part way up to the first floor, and she screwed her eyes tightly against the glare. Onwards and upwards, past suits of armour that seemed to back away from her slightly with a clank of nerves.  
  
Boys and girls she didn't know seemed to dwell there in her memories. Hope frowned and closed her eyes, willing herself to look more closely. She didn't recognise them at all. They wore Hogwarts uniform just like she and Robert did, but something about them was rather odd. Most of the girls had their hair cropped in short bobs along their jaw line, and the boys too looked like pictures from her Quidditch history books, with their hair sleeked to one side. Eyes were staring at her from all sides, admiring and respectful.  
  
"As it should be," a chilling voice said in her head. "They will bow yet more before me when my powers are fully revealed. It is all simply a matter of time." Hope felt her eyes compelled to be drawn to one particular girl. She looked uneasy, her fingers restlessly twitching together. The word 'Muggle' drifted disparagingly round Hope's mind and before she knew what was happening she climbed higher still, reaching the fourth floor corridor.  
  
It was empty here and she glanced around her. Classrooms had their doors ajar, unoccupied and silent now that lessons had finished. She drifted onwards towards the ornately gilded mirror halfway down the deserted hallway. She saw her hand holding her wand, and swishing in the air as if to cast a spell. Yet that wand wasn't willow like hers was. It was too dark for that. Hope frowned suddenly and compelled her mind to work harder, forcing herself to stare into the mirror and move so that she could see clearly.  
  
She gasped out loud.  
  
It wasn't her own dishevelled reflection staring back, but that of a good- looking dark-haired boy with a Head Boy badge pinned to his school robes.  
  
A/N: Apologies for the lack of formatting. Ff.net seems to strip off bold and italics and I can't put it right on here. For a better copy, please try www.elenarda.com, www.gryffindortower.net or www.sugarquill.net. Thanks to Liz and Nome, my intrepid beta readers, who are far more efficient than I am at getting these chapters out! Thanks for being so patient and if you feel like making me smile, there's that little review button right there. 


	6. Never Say Die

With thanks to Allie, without whom Hope would never have got up to quite as much mischief! To Nome and Liz for being the fastest betas in the West and  
to Stephen for teaching me to pronounce 'Watermark' the Bawston way!  
  
Chapter 6  
  
Never Say Die  
  
Hope reached wearily for yet another shrivelfig to skin. It was getting late now, but Snape showed no signs of relenting and letting her escape from this detention so easily this time. He relaxed back into his chair, reading a length of parchment with his usual sneer on his face. Hope glared at him, but he seemed to be oblivious to her presence, merely leaning forward again to scrawl a scathing comment on someone's work. Hope sighed.  
  
"Surely you can work faster than this, Miss Potter?" The sardonic voice of the Potions Master interrupted her reverie. "You'll be here all night at this rate."  
  
She narrowed her eyes and wished he would drop dead. Her fingers were getting sore, and no sooner than she had finished one mountainous heap before her, than Snape lazily waved his wand to summon more of the repulsive things to replace those she'd already finished. This detention felt as if it were never going to end and right now she hated her Head of House with every morsel of passion her heart could muster.  
  
He seemed to be completely oblivious to her, merely turning from one page of parchment to the next every now and then. Other than the rustle of his pages and the crack of shrivelfig pods splitting open, the dungeon was totally silent. Not a word was spoken between them.  
  
Hope snapped open another shrivelfig and lapsed back into her thoughts. Uncle Remus had been right, she could do a lot better than the box of jokes she'd been sent. Those were only tricks and guaranteed to get her more detentions just like this one. Snape didn't seem even slightly bothered by her presence this evening, and that annoyed her more than ever. He should have been furious with her behaviour, but instead, all she'd managed to achieve were piles upon piles of blasted shrivelfigs and the loss of all her valuable free time for scheming about what to do next.  
  
It was no good. What she had to do was to think of something so outrageous that it would provoke Snape to incandescent rage. Something that would get her sent to Professor Circinus. Something that would help her to get home because of just one action. There had to be something.  
  
"Those need to be placed in the solution I've left prepared on the office workbench," Snape instructed. "Shrivelfig steeped in morning dew with 20 per cent fluxweed creates which potion after a period of one week?"  
  
"I don't know, Sir," Hope said, and it was true, she'd never come across that one before, either with her uncles or from the books she'd read.  
  
"It's a salve," Snape explained shortly. "Useful for burns and the like. Madam Pomfrey has requested that it be completed for use in the Hospital Wing, so at least your foolish behaviour has some positive consequences for others. You have good brains: use them!"  
  
"Yes, Sir," Hope said, looking at him steadily.  
  
"Very well." The black eyes bored right into her. "Put forty of the shrivelfigs into the vat, and stir them for a couple of minutes. You should see them beginning to dissolve. Then you can leave them and clear away your mess here."  
  
"Yes, Professor," Hope said meekly and then she turned back to collect a large basin full of the shrivelfigs. "Forty?"  
  
"Precisely," Professor Snape nodded, and returned his attention to his marking.  
  
Hope walked quickly into Snape's tiny office located just behind his desk, and her eyes scanned the shelves rapidly. There were rows and rows of bottles and jars; most of them were large bottles of perfectly normal ingredients like those she had in her own trunk upstairs, but some of the bottles looked far more interesting. Casting a quick glance through the door at Snape, she was relieved to see him perusing someone's essay with one of the most malicious smiles she'd ever seen on his face. He bent to scribble viciously on the paper and she let her eyes flit quickly along the shelves. There were some smaller bottles there, in coloured glass vials that looked promising, and if she could only get her hands on them, she was sure she could come up with something.  
  
She placed her basin on the counter and picked up the pewter stirrer that Snape had left out for her. She heaped handfuls of the shrivelfigs into the elongated dish full of yellowish liquid and began to stir, only half watching as it disintegrated into a pulp and turned into a bright orange hue.  
  
Shooting a glance back over her shoulder, she was aware that Snape must be able to hear the scraping noise of her stirring the concoction. While he could hear that, she was safe because he wouldn't come to check.  
  
"Continuo," she whispered, and grinned to see the metal paddle twisting round the vat on its own.  
  
Quickly, she dived across the room, her eyes dancing along the shelves for something unusual. There was a tiny red vial, almost crimson in colour, and she was just reaching out for it when she saw the word 'Hemlock' printed on it very carefully.  
  
"Useless," she said to herself, and pulled an agonised face at the bottles. She didn't want to kill anyone, she just wanted to get expelled. Why was that so hard to do? She climbed silently on a chair and continued looking along the rows. There was no sound of Snape moving in the other room, but her heart was hammering incredibly loudly in her chest.  
  
A rounded violet bottle wobbled as her fingers passed by it, and Hope snatched it up. The label was very old and faded. She stared hard at it. There was a something -xir. Elixir of. moonshine? Whatever it was, it sounded interesting. A hazy memory was somewhere out of reach. She bit her lip and hastily pulled the cork out of the top before she changed her mind. A light waft of lemons and magnolia tickled her nose, and she tipped the bottle quickly, filling one of the slender vials she had in her own pocket.  
  
Suddenly, she knew the other ingredients she had to acquire. She pushed the violet bottle back on to the shelf, taking great care to line it exactly with the brown ring that had lain underneath the bottle for years. She moved across the room to the right-hand stack of shelves, where she was completely obscured from Snape's vision. It was going to be on the third shelf up, she was certain of it, and sure enough, when she had scrambled up there, there was a clear glass jar containing fragments of faerie wing.  
  
She tipped a small amount of the fragile gossamer into her handkerchief, silently thanking Granny for instilling in her the belief that young witches and wizards should never go out without a clean one in their robes. She knotted it rapidly and stuffed it in her pocket. There was only one thing left to get and that was.  
  
There was a creak from next door and Hope froze. She heard an exasperated sigh and then something sounding very much like Snape was about to get out of his chair. She slid stealthily back down to the floor and caught hold of the pewter stirrer.  
  
"Finite incantatem," she waved her wand, and realised with horror that the potion was beginning to curdle.  
  
"I said to give the potion a quick stir, Miss Potter, not to start up a bid to get into "Hogwarts: A History" for the longest stirring of a potion known to man."  
  
"Sorry, Professor." Hope felt herself begin to flush. "I've made a mess of it as well. Look."  
  
"Easily remedied," Snape said, collecting a large bottle of greenish liquid from a nearby cupboard and dropping an ooze or two into the potion. He took the spatula from her and beat the potion briskly to mix it in, and then left it to settle. "Leech juice," he said briskly. "Excellent binding ingredient in most cases. Should you ever repeat the mistake in class, Miss Potter, might I recommend you add a little to your potion so that points do not need to be deducted from Slytherin?"  
  
"Yes, Sir."  
  
"Good," he said. "Now, if you please, you have some tidying up to do, and then you may go. Under no circumstances do I want to see you back here tomorrow night."  
  
Hope bit back her annoyance in silence. There was still one more ingredient she had to get. She knew it wasn't anything that any of the students were likely to have, but Snape wasn't about to let her root around in his store cupboard. She'd have to try and sneak back in here before she left.  
  
Leaving everything on the table, she hurried back into the dungeon and began to put her things away. The shrivelfig skins were stored in an airtight container for the next poor soul on detention to shred, and she scrubbed the bench clean of all traces of the ingredient. She'd learnt enough already to know that some potions were volatile when they came into contact with others.  
  
Once everything was safely stowed away, she stood patiently at the end of Professor Snape's desk, waiting to be dismissed.  
  
"So how are you settling in?" He introduced the subject with snake-like stealth, catching her unawares. His eyes glittered and he pressed his fingertips together in a sort of steeple shape by his lips. "Are you making friends? I should imagine that it's not been particularly pleasant given some of the girls with whom you are sharing a dormitory."  
  
"I'm fine," Hope said briefly.  
  
"Fine?" His tone seemed very sceptical.  
  
"Yes," she snapped back. "Cora and I are friends."  
  
"Ah! Maguire," Snape nodded his head with some approval. "And the others?"  
  
"Gits."  
  
"So am I to presume that last night's episode involving Miss Parkinson was part of your campaign to be objectionable?"  
  
"Me, objectionable?" Hope choked in surprise. "You want to hear Parkinson when she gets going. Honestly, Professor!"  
  
"That's enough," he said sharply. "If I want your opinion, then I will ask for it."  
  
Hope opened her mouth to point out that he had asked her what she thought, and then closed it again. There were more important battles to be fought and won.  
  
"Miss Potter," The Potions Master's voice resonated through his underground classroom, "a pleasure though it is for you to spend the evening in my stimulating company, I trust that it will happen no more. You have brains and I think we would all appreciate it if you used them a little rather than causing disruption in such an infantile manner. This time wasting must cease. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"  
  
"Perfectly clear, Professor," she said, staring down the gimlet eyes that seemed to bore straight through her. Snape paused for a second and seemed to be weighing up her answer carefully. "Very well. You may go."  
  
Hope nodded and quietly made her way over to the door of the dungeon. She clapped a hand to her pocket when she was almost there and gave an exclamation of annoyance.  
  
"What now?" Snape's tones showed exasperation.  
  
"My wand," she explained, turning to allow her eyes to scan around the room. "I've put it down somewhere."  
  
"Then I suggest you find it!" he said shortly. He leaned back in his chair and began a fresh assault on the essays before him, not seeming to pay her any attention as she hunted through the areas where she could have possibly left her wand.  
  
"May I check your office, please?" she said after a time. "I think I might have left it by the vat when I was in there."  
  
Snape barely looked up to grunt consent, and she scuttled quickly into the smaller room. Wasting no time, she clambered onto a chair and stretched up for a particular jar high above her head. Thestral hairs. She could see them clearly inside the glass container. She unscrewed the lid with a shaking hand and took a few before pushing the jar back in place and dropping lightly to the floor.  
  
"There it is!" she exclaimed loudly, and collected her wand from under the shelves where she'd left it earlier. She emerged, brandishing her find in her right hand. "Thanks, Professor!"  
  
Snape nodded at her, and Hope hurried out of the dungeon without a backwards glance, her stomach lurching with nerves.  
  
She sprinted up the empty stone corridor and ducked into a little rocky alcove, hiding behind a large stone statue of Uric the Oddball and caught her breath. She slipped the thestral hairs into another vial, corked it and then stared at the strange assortment of ingredients she'd just stolen. Why had she taken those particular things? She hadn't used any of them before and hadn't even known they existed before now. There was no telling what they'd do in conjunction with one another, and she knew better than to try and make a random potion. She could still remember the time that Uncles Fred and George had tried that on Lee Jordan and had ended up accidentally transforming him into a plague of polka dotted frogs.  
  
There was an uneasy feeling somewhere in the back of her mind. She'd felt so certain that she needed these specific things for a particular potion, and yet it felt like she had forgotten whatever it was. It was a foggy memory, lurking somewhere at the far end of her brain. She screwed her face up, trying to focus her mind on it, but it was hopeless. What she'd just done made no sense at all.  
  
She pocketed the ingredients again with a tiny sigh, and looked at her watch. It was getting late now, and she still hadn't come up with a real plan of what to do next. Still, she had a good selection of library books, and perhaps she'd be able to find something in one of those.  
  
***  
  
Hope rubbed her eyes sleepily. The regular breathing of the others in her dormitory was lulling her towards sleep as well. She'd caught herself drifting off once or twice and her head had jerked abruptly upwards as she'd forced herself to stay awake.  
  
She reached wearily for the next book at the foot of her bed, and flipped to the index page. Her wand illuminated the creamy parchment and as she read downwards, a smile curved across her lips. This definitely looked promising. Suddenly she sat upright in bed and pored carefully over the pages, flipping from one charm to the next. These didn't look too difficult to cast, and with a bit of imagination, they could be adapted to be quite funny. The question was, where could she do them? And then it occurred to her. Breakfast. The whole school would be there, and. her grin widened. she knew just how to set this up.  
  
She slipped out of bed and grabbed her dressing gown. No one was likely to be around at this early hour of the morning, and even if she were caught, then that would only land her in more trouble. It was a plan with no drawbacks. With her book tucked under one arm and her wand in hand, she tiptoed out of Slytherin and headed cheerfully towards the Hogwarts kitchens.  
  
It was only a few minutes later that she found herself beside the painting of the bowl of fruit that she'd heard everyone talking about so often at home. She reached out a finger and tickled the pear. It wriggled beneath her touch and gave a little giggle, transforming at once into a doorknob to allow her inside.  
  
Quickly, she slipped in and stared around her with interest.  
  
The room was enormous. It had a large range of polished ovens at the far side, with coppery pans and basins suspended from racks above them, glinting in the blue moonlight that streamed in from the windows high above her head. Huge, long tables filled a large proportion of the room. Four of them stretched down the length of the place, and the other one, furthest away from where she stood, was perpendicular to the others. She realised with a jolt that this was identical to the layout of the tables in the Great Hall, which must be directly above. Yes, she was right. The tables were already set out as if for breakfast, and there must be some sort of magic that lifted them from this room to the one above when a person was ready to eat. It was all here, just waiting for morning.  
  
She almost skipped the length of the deserted room. Things couldn't be more perfect than this. The preparation table for the staff had been laid out in their places, and as they always sat in the same seats, it was going to be easy. Hope regarded Snape's cornflakes with a wicked grin. This was going to be worth detention any day of the week!  
  
She opened her spell book and in the quietest of voices began to weave the charm.  
  
***  
  
"Hope! Hope!"  
  
She became dimly aware of a hand on her shoulder, shaking her, and she sleepily tried to swat it away. Just a few more hours. She pulled her blankets over her head to try and block out the noise.  
  
"Come on, Hope! Wake up!" the voice pleaded. "We're going to be late for breakfast!"  
  
Breakfast?  
  
Hope sat bolt upright so suddenly that she almost smacked hard into Cora's nose.  
  
"Whattimesit?" she gabbled, leaping out from her bed and immediately beginning to haul on her uniform.  
  
"Not quite eight," Cora said, watching her friend with a great deal of bemusement. "What's going on?"  
  
"Nothing," Hope grinned at her. "Just don't want to be late, that's all. I got into enough trouble yesterday," she added as she became aware of the other three girls in the room.  
  
She fastened her robes up with shaking fingers and rummaged frantically through her trunk for her hairbrush.  
  
"You should really get round to unpacking," Cora chuckled. "I'll give you a hand tonight after lessons, if you want."  
  
"It's ok," Hope said abruptly. She'd got no intention of unpacking anything; after all, it was only a matter of time before she'd leave this place, one way or another. Unpacking would be like admitting that Slytherin was home, and hell would freeze over before Hope Potter was prepared to do that.  
  
Hurried ablutions were all she had time for, and before she knew where she was, she was running at full pelt up the underground passageways that she'd sleepily stumbled down less than a couple of hour before. They seemed different to the ghostly eeriness of the night, looking far brighter and more cheerful, with the torches flaming in the sconces on the walls, and the babbling chatter of the day that surrounded them in the crowds waiting to enter the Great Hall for breakfast.  
  
"What's the rush?" Cora gasped, clutching a stitch in her side as she stumbled to a halt beside Hope.  
  
"Hungry, I suppose," Hope smiled, the impish pixies of her insides now dancing with glee. Then, quite unexpectedly, she felt a tremor of nerves running through her. What if it didn't work at all? What if they didn't realise that it was her behind it? What if they did? Suddenly she felt quite sick.  
  
The great oak doors swung open and the throng of unsuspecting students and staff strolled in, taking their places on the tables where they always sat. Hope slid into a seat with her back to the wall, glancing swiftly up at the staff table where they were all taking their places. Hope's eyes widened as she saw Professor Trelawney drift vaguely down the gap between the tables, her gossamer-like robes wafting in her wake. She knew Trelawney was one of the Divination teachers from Mum and Dad moaning so much about her not being able to predict a rain cloud if she'd been standing underneath one, but she'd never seen the teacher appear for any meals thus far.  
  
Toast appeared on the table before her, but Hope took no notice; she was staring transfixed at the very top table. Cora followed her gaze, and then turned back to her friend looking very perplexed.  
  
"What have you done?" she said in a worried whisper. Hope just grinned.  
  
Severus Snape had disappeared behind his copy of The Daily Prophet to eat his bowl of morning cornflakes. A couple of seats further down, an unsuspecting Remus Lupin winked at her and then turned to continue his conversation with Professor McGonagall. Professor Sprout was tucking into her daily grapefruit with gusto, and Hagrid was right at the end of the line, enjoying his morning porridge, despite Trelawney twittering on like an annoying bird in his ear.  
  
Hope held her breath. Any second now.  
  
There was an almighty screech from the staff table and the babble from the students was quashed instantly as if someone had flicked a switch. All necks craned to see what was going on.  
  
"Oh my goodness!" shrieked Professor Trelawney. "Severus, my dear!"  
  
"What is it now, Sybill?" Snape snapped with impatience. "Don't tell me you've foreseen my death in your morning milk?" There was an irritated rustle of his paper.  
  
Uncle Remus leaned backwards in his chair, stretching to see what was happening lower down the table. His lips twitched and Hope could see he was trying not to laugh.  
  
"What now?" Snape sounded more annoyed than ever, and he flung the newspaper down on the table in front of him. "Can't a man.?"  
  
Whatever Snape had been about to say was drowned out by the screams of laughter that rang through the lofty rafters of the Great Hall. Hope's mouth dropped open with sheer glee. This was better than even she had imagined. Snape glared around the room, his black eyes scowling from underneath the bright pink feathers that were sprouting rapidly through his lank locks.  
  
His hooked nose seemed to elongate, curving more than ever and darkening into a beak. More feathers sprouted, and his neck stretched out, reminding Hope instantly of a pink flamingo.  
  
Professor McGonagall's hand flew up to her mouth as if she were going to be sick. Her tightly pinned hair spiralled down from her usually severe bun, changing her usual greying locks to a shiny chestnut. Her black robes blurred before their eyes and before they had a chance to blink they were faced with their Transfiguration teacher looking a good forty years younger in clinging leather that wouldn't look misplaced on a dedicated biker.  
  
The house tables rocked in mirth, barely drawing breath before Professor Sprout gave a startled cry. A whitish beard shot out of the end of her chin, growing at a furious pace, but no one had a chance to watch longer. Professor Lupin's robes had been transformed into an elegant off-the- shoulder evening gown of shimmering gold, complete with strappy heels and a handbag. His usually shaggy hair was swept back into an elegant chignon, and held in place with a tasteful pin. He took one look at himself, burst out laughing and stood up to take a bow to rapturous applause and cheering.  
  
Professor Sprout's beard was now rivalling that of even the most venerable of wizards, twisting down around by her knees.  
  
The hall was in uproar as Professor Trelawney leapt to her feet, crying of terrible things and made a lolloping run for the door before anything worse could happen to her. Hope grabbed her wand and muttered a quick spell under her breath. She'd once learnt it from one of Dad's books and had used it every now and then to torment her brother. A dark puff of cloud broke away from the enchanted ceiling and drifted after the Divination teacher, beginning a light drizzle of rain on top of her as they passed into the corridor beyond.  
  
Snape was trying to keep order, but in vain. His expression was one of thunder, but when his robes transformed into a slinky negligee, the entire hall was reduced to complete hysteria.  
  
"Ah's takin' it easy," Hagrid's dreadlocked form rumbled from the far end of the staff table. "Dem t'ings don' matter. Relax, man!"  
  
Hope could do no more. The tears of laughter were rolling down her cheeks, and her sides hurt with sheer delight. It didn't come better than this. 


	7. Rebel With A Cause

A/N: Thanks to Allie for the chalk and Stephen for the goat.  
  
Chapter 7  
Rebel With A Cause  
  
After the laughter had settled and the students in the Great Hall were finally finishing their breakfasts, Hope managed to catch Robert's eye. He raised an eyebrow at her from the Gryffindor table and Hope nodded and jerked her head towards the door. She slipped quickly out of her seat.  
  
"I'll see you in History of Magic," she muttered to Cora. "There's something I want to do first."  
  
"I'm coming with you," Cora scraped her own chair backwards. "Goodness only knows what you'll get up to next if I leave you on your own again. That was you doing all that, wasn't it?"  
  
Hope nodded, and hurried to where Robert was waiting patiently in the entrance hall. A grin quirked his lips when he saw her.  
  
"I'll have to get you to teach me those spells," he said with admiration. "Snape was just priceless wearing those feathers."  
  
Hope shrugged. "It didn't work properly," she admitted, keeping her voice low so a batch of sixth years passing by didn't overhear. "It was meant to turn him totally into a flamingo, but it only did a partial transformation."  
  
"Even so," Robert exclaimed, his face glowing with sheer delight, "can you imagine the fun we could have with the prefects?" He glanced anxiously at Cora, wondering if he'd said something he shouldn't have.  
  
"This is Cora," Hope explained. "She's in Slytherin as well, but she's nice. Cora, this is Robert. He's a friend of mine from home. We've known each other since we were about six months old."  
  
"And she still acts like it sometimes," Robert chuckled.  
  
Cora smiled shyly at him. "I've seen you in Potions."  
  
More students were starting to wander out of the Great Hall, parting at the foot of the stairs and disappearing in various directions to prepare for the morning's lessons.  
  
"We've not got long," Hope said. She glanced around her and as soon as the corridor was empty, she pulled open a door into a nearby broom cupboard, and the three of them squeezed inside. Brooms clattered to the floor as Robert backed into them, and Hope winced when she stubbed her toe on a metal bucket.  
  
"What's all this about?" Robert asked. She could just about make out his expression through the darkness. "What's up?"  
  
Hope looked from Robert to Cora, and sighed.  
  
"I want to go home," she said simply.  
  
Cora gave a horrified cry. "You can't!"  
  
"Why?" Robert sounded more confused than anything. "It's not just because of your sorting, is it? There's got to be some other way round that, we just haven't found it yet."  
  
"Balthasar's not back yet from Mum and Dad," Hope tried to explain, but she felt a knot thickening in her throat. "I need to talk to them. They must be so upset with me."  
  
"You don't want to be in Slytherin?" Cora was aghast. "Why would anyone have a problem with that?"  
  
"You don't know my family," Hope tried to laugh, but it came out as a strangled sob. "All of them have been in Gryffindor for years, and I've really let them down."  
  
"They can't think that!" Cora tried to reassure her, but Hope shook her head fiercely.  
  
"They will, all right? I couldn't get out of here when I tried on a broom because of the wards around the grounds, and the chances of me getting through the main gate on foot are about as likely as Snape winning a comedy award. That leaves me with one option."  
  
"The secret passageway?" Robert said at once. "The one on the fourth floor."  
  
"Exactly," Hope said, her heart rising again. "It's far less risky than using a fireplace to talk to them. If we can work out where the passageway door is now, I could be home and back again before anyone misses me. I could sneak out tonight and be back for breakfast."  
  
"And if you're caught?"  
  
"What's the worst they could do? Expel me?" Hope gave a dry laugh. "I need to see Mum and Dad."  
  
"So what do you want us to do?" Robert asked, the set of his jaw telling Hope at once that she had an ally. She glanced across at Cora and saw the dark-haired girl swallow nervously.  
  
"I'll help too," she agreed, a slight tremor in her voice betraying how scared she was at the thought of breaking the rules.  
  
"If one of you could keep a look out, the other could help me find the door," Hope explained. "I know the incantation to open it, but there's no mirror up there now to mark the entrance, so we'll have to try the walls and portraits and everything."  
  
"Best wait until everyone's asleep then," Robert said thoughtfully. "How about I meet you both in the little alcove by the Goblin Rebellion tapestry at midnight?"  
  
Hope glanced at Cora, who nodded.  
  
"Midnight," she breathed.  
  
***  
  
The morning's lessons seemed to drag on endlessly. Most of the pupils were in high spirits, enjoying the sight of their teachers changed appearances, but Hope had her mind on other things.  
  
She stared listlessly out of the window during History of Magic. Professor Binns had escaped her charms at breakfast, solely due to the fact that he was a ghost and didn't bother attending meals in the castle. Consequently the lesson was about as exciting as watching a sloth run a mile. She stifled a yawn and turned her head back to the classroom itself, seeing September sunshine glittering its golden rays over the heads that rested sleepily on hands and in the crooks of arms as Binns droned on.  
  
"In eleven forty-two Eric the Eager was assassinated by means of beheading with a large axe. He was succeeded by Omar the Ungrateful (1109 to 1143), whose foreign policy brought about a more affluent economy."  
  
Hope scratched her quill against the scroll of parchment in front of her, doodling faces and swirls to embellish her name, the only thing she'd written thus far in the lesson. Professor Binns' chalk was scribbling away on the blackboard behind him, noting down the dates and the major events as he talked his way through the topic.  
  
"The Treaty of Druododna in September 1143 was one of the first of its kind, as both signatories survived for more than a day afterwards."  
  
Hope's eyes focused on the chalk and an idea slowly dawned. She'd done something similar once by accident when Mum had been dictating a chapter to her quill. What if.? She narrowed her eyes and stared hard at the chalk, feeling out for the magic controlling it. A shivery tingle ran through her, and the chalk paused in the act of inscribing the treaty's date on the board.  
  
"Two days later an emissary arrived from the newly established Unter faction."  
  
Behind Binns, the chalk scribbled furiously. Hope's jaw dropped. She didn't know it was possible for anyone to do that, never mind with a goat and a wand...  
  
There was a muffled snigger from the far side of the classroom as another student spotted what the chalk was up to. Professor Binns barely paused in his delivery of his lecture, his pearly-white figure drifting slightly behind his desk as he stooped to read from the textbook.  
  
"War was declared between the two factions a week after the signing of this treaty, and this interim period of peace was spoken of with reverence for centuries, known to all as The Long Respite."  
  
The chalk danced its way across the dusty surface again, tapping lightly as it inscribed its message. There were little nudges around the classroom and the Slytherin first years blinked the sleep away and watched the board with delighted fascination.  
  
Professor Binns straightened up a little, clearly pleased to have a class paying such attention to his every word, and launched into a detailed account of the beginnings of the Two Hundred Year War, thus called because it lasted precisely sixty-eight years.  
  
A little giggle. Then another.  
  
A whisper like leaves rustling in the wind wafted around the classroom. A limerick that Peeves would have been proud of was scrawling its way across the board, and Hope had to stuff her fist in her mouth to stop herself from laughing. She glanced across the classroom, and found that Belford was looking startled, but some of the other pupils were rocking with barely contained mirth.  
  
Parkinson glanced across at her, and her lips thinned into the narrowest of lines. Suddenly, her hand shot into the air.  
  
"Professor," she called imperiously.  
  
"Er. yes? Miss. er.?" Professor Binns said, sounding rather vague and woolly now that his line of thought had been interrupted.  
  
"Miss Parkinson," Priscilla reminded him, with a snooty glance sideways at Hope. "I was just wondering what that lizard you've written about on the board had to do with anything."  
  
"Lizard?" Professor Binns echoed, clearly quite bewildered by the comment. "Lizard?"  
  
The chalk scrawled a stream of colourful curses, and Priscilla turned a mottled shade of red. She visibly bristled.  
  
"Yes, Sir," she said. "The things that are written on your."  
  
She broke off mid-sentence, and shuddered for breath again and again. Suddenly the most enormous sneeze shook her frame and almost made the windows rattle. She tried to catch her breath, but it was no good. Again and again she sneezed until the tears were streaming down her cheeks and she was unable to speak.  
  
Belford was sitting opposite Parkinson, blushing madly. He grinned over at Hope, and she saw him pocket a twist of paper that she would have recognised anywhere. Without doubt it contained a batch of Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes best sneezing powder (guaranteed to render your victim helpless, or your money back!)  
  
"Good heavens!" Professor Binns exclaimed as Parkinson roared in a breath of air before she began sneezing again.  
  
"Shall I take her to the hospital wing?" Rose Lambert offered.  
  
"Yes, yes!" Their teacher waved his hand in their direction and dismissed them with some irritation. "Now where was I?"  
  
Cora raised her hand. "The Two Hundred Years War, Sir."  
  
Professor Binns looked rather disconcerted. Mostly his classes couldn't have even told him what subject they were studying, let alone the last thing he'd said. "Thank you, McCord," he said to Cora. Cora bit her lip and Hope could tell that she was trying not to laugh.  
  
"The Two Hundred Years War as it became known, actually only lasted for sixty eight years. It began with the siege of." Professor Binns settled into his regular monotonous drone, and the chalk began scribbling naughty rhymes involving an old witch from St. Ives.  
  
The bell finally sounded to signal the end of the lesson and the students all scrambled to stuff their belongings back in their bags. Once into the corridor, Hope pushed through the throng and caught hold of Belford's arm. He was startled and swung round to face her, bright colour flushing through his face.  
  
"Sorry!" Hope exclaimed. "I just wanted to say 'thank you' for getting me out of trouble in there. The sneezing powder was brilliant."  
  
If it was at all possible, Belford went even redder. The tips of his ears were now crimson. "'S all right," he muttered, beaming with pleasure.  
  
Hope grinned back, and began to stroll with Cora and Belford towards their next lesson, Care of Magical Creatures. He was looking distinctly uncomfortable and kept tugging at his collar.  
  
"What's your first name?" Hope asked by way of conversation as they passed through a stone archway and down a set of rickety spiral stairs. "I can't keep calling you Belford."  
  
"M-Matthew," he stammered, and walked straight into a suit of armour. The clashes and clangs echoed up and down the corridor as he toppled over onto the floor and wrestled to free himself from the ensuing mess. Hope and Cora bent to help him up.  
  
"Are you all right?" Cora asked anxiously.  
  
Matthew nodded. He looked very much as if he wished the ground would swallow him whole. He picked up his book bag, hoisted it over his shoulder and said, "I'd better look where I'm going in future, that's all."  
  
They hurried off, through the entrance hall and off into the soft sunshine of the late morning. The grass of the lawns was green and full and the sky was scattered with idle clouds. Cora squinted up at the sky.  
  
"I wonder how Trelawney's getting on," she chuckled. "How long does that spell last anyway?"  
  
"About a week," Hope admitted with a wry grin. "I've done it on Sam before. That's my brother," she added by way of explanation. "Mum went mad when she couldn't find a counter spell."  
  
They reached Hagrid's cabin and wandered a little way further along to the wooden railings that usually penned in the magical creatures they would be studying. Instead, all they found was Hagrid lounging back in a colourful deckchair, his enormous dreadlocks framing his cheerful face.  
  
"Hi Hagrid," Hope smiled at him, keeping her fingers crossed that Hagrid had taken his transformation as well as Uncle Remus seemed to have done. "What are we doing today?"  
  
"Chillin'" Hagrid responded, and closed his eyes again.  
  
The three of them shared a grin and collapsed on the grass, enjoying the sunshine for a while. Hope dug one of her library books out of her bag and rolled onto her stomach. She worked her way through the list of charms, pondering over what mischief could be caused with them.  
  
Some of the spells looked far too difficult for her to attempt, and if her experience in Transfiguration was anything to go by, she should definitely steer clear of things like engorgement charms. She could just see herself trying to make a blade of grass double in size and ending up with something that rivalled Jack's beanstalk. However, there were a few spells that she thought she might be able to work without too much trouble.  
  
The warmth of the sun and the lack of sleep the previous night made her eyes droop. She forced her eyelids open and tried to concentrate on her book, but it was too much. She laid her head down in her arms and closed her eyes.  
  
Just five minutes, she thought to herself. Her breathing deepened almost at once and the haziness of sleep washed over her. The sun was warm and soothing, penetrating the aches of her tired body, and very soon the chattering of her classmates dissolved into dreams.  
  
"Hope!" It was Cora again. Surely it couldn't be morning already. Hope wrinkled her brow and groaned, rolling onto her back to see what her friend wanted. "Hope! Wake Up!"  
  
Instead of the canopy of her four-poster bed that Hope had expected to see above her, there was just sky. She blinked and shook the sleep from her eyes, sitting up quickly and staring around, slightly bewildered about where she was. Straggles of Slytherin first years were walking in groups back up to the castle. She could see Parkinson and Lambert striding out in front and Belford seemed to have rejoined his friends to lark about on the way back to the castle. Cora grinned at her.  
  
"Well, if you are up half the night what do you expect?" She offered Hope a hand and pulled her to her feet. "Come on, let's go and get some lunch, I'm starving."  
  
For once there were a lot of gaps on the staff table and Professors Flitwick and Binns, neither of whom had actually been at breakfast, supervised the meal. Madam Pomfrey sat at the end of the table looking stern and disapproving.  
  
"What do you reckon the staff are up to?" she asked Cora.  
  
Cora shook her head, her mouth full of baked potato. Hope turned her attention to her own lunch and picked at it, not feeling particularly hungry. She'd expected Snape to have descended furiously upon her by now and at the very least hauled her before the headmaster. Hope wasn't exactly looking forward to that happening, but at least then she could explain things to Professor Circinus himself and see if he could suggest anything to do with the sorting. In the meantime, all this waiting was making her feel queasy. What was Snape planning?  
  
She threw down her fork with a clatter on her plate and took a sip of pumpkin juice. It was no good. She felt sick. She had to know what was going on.  
  
"I'm not hungry," she explained. "You finish and I'll see you back in the common room."  
  
Before Cora could protest, Hope grabbed her school bag and hurried out of the door. She twisted her way up the stairs and along a variety of corridors until she came out one level above where she'd planned to be. There was a balcony here overlooking the corridor below and a great arched window that gave a view of the Forbidden Forest and Hagrid's hut. Directly beneath her was the Hogwarts staff room, and if the staff weren't at lunch, then it was more likely than not they'd be in there.  
  
Hope knelt down, and rummaged through her bag. They were a bit squashed, but she supposed they'd still work all right. Uncles Fred and George didn't make anything that was particularly delicate. She unravelled the long stringy tangle and, with a quick glance around her, dropped an extendible ear over the balcony to hang roughly level with the staff room door.  
  
She caught the end of Remus saying something about Slytherin, and then Snape interrupted him, his tones dripping with sarcasm.  
  
"Marvellous. Simply marvellous! As if having the fiend from hell in my house wasn't enough, she's only going to get worse. What's she going to do next? Turn all the house elves into can-can dancers?"  
  
Hope hugged herself with delight and it was difficult to resist laughing aloud. There was the distant rumble of thunder, and she glanced quickly at the window, puzzled to see that the sky was as clear as it had been during Care of Magical Creatures.  
  
"She could always use a good switching spell and change the common rooms around," Professor Sprout's laughter echoed in her ear. "That way she could be in Gryffindor without any of the hassles. If the mountain won't go to Mohammed, then."  
  
"Then Mohammed will be put in detention until there's an anti-switching spell on the Slytherin common room," Snape retorted.  
  
"Oh will I now?" Hope said under her breath, a wide grin spreading across her face. She jumped suddenly as the thunder rumbled again. That wasn't coming from outside, that was Professor Trelawney and her storm cloud hurrying down the corridor!  
  
Just in the nick of time, Hope hauled the extendible ear upwards, ravelling the long cord quickly round her hand. Her heart was pounding uncomfortably in her chest, with her discovery. Snape still thought he had the upper hand? Well, he hadn't put a switching spell on the common rooms yet, had he?  
  
She dumped the extendible ear back in her bag and pulled her library book out again. Switching spells? Her finger found them quickly in the index and she flipped to the page with trembling hands. Scanning quickly through the basic spell, she frowned. This wasn't as easy as the charms she'd done that morning because she'd never seen the Gryffindor Common Room. Still, she'd heard enough about it to know what it looked like and it was worth a try.  
  
She lifted her wand and concentrated hard. She imagined the Fat Lady opening up and the squashy armchairs that her family had described in the round turret room high in the castle. She could picture them floating towards her, changing places with the Slytherin furniture down by the lake. A whispered incantation and magic tingled through her.  
  
Something had definitely happened.  
  
Hope pushed her book back into her bag and was about to hurry back to the common room to find out what she'd done when she heard a set of feet sprinting along the corridor and a furious hammering on the door of the staff room below. There was a short respite and the knocking began again with renewed vigour.  
  
"P-Professor," a female voice stuttered. "Is Professor McGonagall there? Oh! You've got to come quickly."  
  
"Whatever is it?"  
  
"I was." the girl began. Hope peered cautiously over the balcony, watching the events below with interest.  
  
"Which of you lot did it?" a furious roar came down the corridor and the Slytherin head boy bounded into sight. "You've got a bloody nerve."  
  
"That's enough!" Snape growled and the seventh year fell silent at once, glowering at his Gryffindor counterpart. "What happened, Forth?"  
  
"They've been into out common room and nicked all the furniture, Sir!"  
  
"Don't be ridiculous. It was you stealing ours," the girl retorted.  
  
Hope fled, laughter bubbling up inside her. She couldn't believe she'd actually done it. Her feet carried her as fast as they could down to the common room, slipping and sliding across the marble floor in the entrance hall in her haste. Down the darkened corridors to the patch of damp wall that slid aside to grant her access.  
  
Uproar greeted her. Pupils of all shapes and sizes were yelling furiously and gesticulating at various strange objects that had unexpectedly filled their common room. Hope pushed through the throng, and found a very large squashy armchair right by the fire. She sank into it, smiling blissfully. Gryffindor at last!  
  
***  
  
Hope lay in bed, watching the inky lake shimmer in the moonlight. Darkened shapes of owls soared silently above it all, some returning to the fold with parcels and letters for their owners, others departing with news for those at home. There had been no sign of her own sooty owl, and his absence just made her feel worse than ever.  
  
Hope swallowed, trying her level best not to cry and hugged Grandpa's Gryffindor scarf tightly. She burrowed her face into the wool and took a deep breath. She'd be home soon, and even if Mum and Dad were furious with her, they'd help her sort out all this mess somehow. The passageway on the fourth floor would bring her out somewhere in Hogsmeade, and from there it was just a case of running along a few streets and she'd be home.  
  
Not long to go now.  
  
She glanced at her watch and leaned over to part the curtains of Cora's bed. Cora was curled up on her quilt glancing through a photograph album, and Hope caught a glimpse of a pretty brunette witch, who must have been Cora's mother, before Cora flipped the cover closed. Her blue eyes lifted expectantly to Hope's green ones.  
  
"It's time," Hope whispered. She rearranged her bed to make it look like someone was sleeping in there and then picked up her wand and her cloak. Following Cora, she tiptoed past the other three sleepers in their dormitory and into the pitch blackness of the stairwell beyond.  
  
Hope put one hand against the cool stone wall and cautiously descended. Her foot missed the next step down at one point and she lurched forward, her stomach plummeting at the same time as her foot. Slowly, and carefully they reached the bottom and then, after quickly checking that the place was deserted, they ran through the re-Slytherined common room into the underground passageways beyond.  
  
"We need to steer clear of the dungeons, or we'll run into the Bloody Baron," Cora hissed, and Hope halted in the act of turning left. She looked at Cora for a moment, grateful for the torches giving them some light to see by.  
  
She nodded her understanding, and both girls scuttled in the opposite direction, trying to keep to the shadows as much as they could.  
  
This corridor was faintly familiar to Hope, and her feet moved easily around the twists and turns that had been hewn in the rock centuries before. The path forked, and she instinctively turned left, her feet pattering quickly up a flight of shallow stairs. Cora grinned at her, and Hope smiled back. She was less disconcerted by her knowledge of the castle know and, for once, it could actually be an advantage.  
  
They took another turn and the floor began to slope steeply upwards. They struggled up the hill. Hope felt like her legs were being transfigured into jelly and she leaned her hand against the wall for a second, bending forwards to gulp air into her aching lungs. She couldn't stop now. She was going to go home.  
  
She propelled herself up the incline, forcing herself to get to the top, and as she eventually did, she stumbled and sprawled headlong across the stone landing at the top.  
  
There was a muffled giggle.  
  
"Are you ok?" Cora whispered.  
  
Hope sat up and inspected herself. There was a graze across one knee that was oozing with blood, and her left wrist stung abominably. She'd obviously come down hardest on that and had sprained it or something.  
  
"Fine," she said brightly. She got to her feet, brushed her robes down and, with a wince of pain from her wrist, she pushed the solitary door on the landing open.  
  
They were halfway up the main staircase. She glanced at Cora. They knew what they had to do.  
  
The place was deserted and they scrambled silently upwards. Second floor. Third. Fourth. Cora grabbed Hope's arm and hauled her backwards into a tiny alcove behind a stone dwarf.  
  
"Someone's coming," she murmured. Her breath was hot in Hope's ear. They waited, barely daring to breathe. All Hope could hear was her heart pounding in her ears like they were about to explode and the footsteps of someone getting ever closer.  
  
"I'm sure I heard something. Mrs Norris, my pretty, do you think there are students out of bed?"  
  
There was a yowl of assent from the cat and Hope chewed on her lip. She didn't care about getting caught, but she wasn't about to get Cora into trouble. There had to be some way out of this.  
  
Her heart was beating faster now, and her fingers slipped on her wand. She'd managed a switching spell earlier, what if she tried to do one again? There would be some noise and Filch would surely go to investigate. Filch was coming nearer and Cora was pressed back in the corner, balanced somewhat precariously, desperately trying to stay out of sight.  
  
"Hunt them out, my lovely," Filch crooned to his cat.  
  
Hope took a deep breath, tried to focus her mind on Professor McGonagall's desk and blackboard. It was far enough away to get them out of trouble, but near enough so Filch would hear it. She lifted her wand and muttered the spell she'd tried earlier, hoping the two objects would switch places. Cora overbalanced and fell against her.  
  
There was an almighty crash. The Transfiguration blackboard had evidently toppled over.  
  
"Peeves!" Filch bellowed furiously. He tore down the corridor, Mrs Norris at his heels. Hope let out a shuddering sigh of relief.  
  
"OK?" she whispered, as Cora sat upright again. "We'd better try and find Robert."  
  
More footsteps could be heard, and Hope closed her eyes. They'd been lucky once, but the chances were they'd be caught this time. This set of steps was quieter and slightly uncertain; they paused now and then as if their owner was inspecting something.  
  
"Is anyone here?" a familiar voice hissed.  
  
Hope opened her mouth to let Robert know they were there, but someone else beat her to it.  
  
"No doubt you'd prefer it if there wasn't." Snape's sardonic comment rang down the corridor. Hope cringed. "Well, well, who do we have here? Miles of Gryffindor, isn't it?"  
  
"Y-Yes, Professor Snape," Robert replied, sounding totally terrified.  
  
Hope shook her head and began to get to her feet at once. She couldn't let Robert take the blame for this, not when it was all her fault. Cora caught hold of her hand and looked imploringly at her. Suddenly Hope understood. If she moved, then Cora would be caught too.  
  
Memories of Cora worrying about what her mum would say if she got into mischief drifted through her mind. She couldn't do that to Cora either. It was agony and Hope writhed uncomfortably, the guilt eating away at her. What could she do to make sure this was put right?  
  
"You're one of Potter's friends," Snape said, and Hope could imagine her teacher's face as he put the pieces of the puzzle together. "Where is she?" he added silkily.  
  
"I don't know, sir," Robert admitted, with perfect honesty. "Probably in bed if she's got any sense."  
  
"Indeed."  
  
There was a rustling noise, sounding like Snape was looking behind the tapestry that they'd arranged to meet behind, and then a grunt of irritation.  
  
"What were you doing out of bed, Miles?" The question was barked, shattering the stillness of the night.  
  
"I-I'd left my homework in Professor Flitwick's room and thought I'd better get it before I got into trouble. But I've got into trouble anyway."  
  
"Thirty points from Gryffindor," Snape said coldly. "And you can have detention as well for your trouble. I want to see you tomorrow morning before breakfast in my classroom, is that understood?"  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
Hope's insides were curling up with frustration. This wasn't Robert's fault. She wanted to stand up and yell at Snape, but she knew she couldn't.  
  
"Straight back to Gryffindor," Snape commanded. "Do not pause on the way. I shall see you first thing in the morning, and I should hope that by then you would have come up with a better excuse. Gryffindors never were very inventive, but this cock and bull tale about homework is below par, even for Gryffindor's usual low standards."  
  
Robert turned and obediently headed back towards Gryffindor Tower, his shoulders bowed and head low. Hope felt a huge twist of guilt. She'd go to Snape first thing in the morning, even before Robert had a chance to get there and confess. There was no way she'd let him be punished because of her.  
  
Snape strode off in the opposite direction, his robes billowing out behind him. Cora gave a shuddering sob.  
  
"It's ok," Hope reassured her. "He's gone now, but I think we'd better get out of here before Filch comes back. Come on, it's not worth trying this again tonight."  
  
***  
  
Hope was dressed before the rest of the girls in her dormitory had woken up. She brushed her hair patiently, trying to get it to lie straight, and to some extent succeeded. She looked at herself in the mirror beside her bed and saw her reflection staring back. She looked pale and wan. Dark shadows were smudged under her eyes belying a lack of sleep. Her face was even paler than usual, in direct contrast with the brightness of her hair and her black robes.  
  
The others began to get dressed for the day ahead, but she didn't speak to any of them. She stared listlessly out of the window, willing the slow pointers of time to move forwards so that she could confess to what she'd done; she thought her watch must have broken because the minutes barely seemed to be moving at all. She shifted restlessly, unable to keep still.  
  
Finally, with a quick smile at Cora, Hope let herself out of the dormitory and made her way along to Snape's classroom. Her insides were twisting themselves in knots, lurching and making her feel sick.  
  
Don't be stupid she reprimanded herself. You deserve this. Robert doesn't.  
  
She stared for a moment at the heavy oak door and steeled herself. Her shaking hand reached up and knocked firmly on the dungeon door. Snape answered with a curt, "Enter!" and she pushed the door open, determined to meet her fate.  
  
What met her eyes took her breath away.  
  
"Mum? Dad?" 


	8. Catch 22

Chapter 8  
  
Catch 22  
  
"Mum? Dad?"  
  
Hope glanced nervously from one to the other. Her mother's face was flushed and she looked ready to explode at any second, but her father's expression was worse. He stared gravely at her and slowly raised his eyebrows. Nothing was said.  
  
She gulped.  
  
Snape cleared his throat, and Hope's eyes flickered wildly in his direction. She'd come here for a reason, and she was in so much trouble now that she couldn't possibly make it any worse.  
  
"Professor," she said, rushing through this before she had a chance to change her mind. "It was my fault that Robert was out of bounds last night. I was there too but you didn't see me."  
  
"How courageous of you," Snape drawled. "Extraordinarily kind of you to hide and let your friend take all the blame."  
  
"It wasn't like that," Hope protested, feeling her temper begin to flame.  
  
Snape's fingers drummed on the desk. "So what was it like exactly? Perhaps you'd care to explain?"  
  
All eyes in the room seemed to bore into her and Hope's cheeks burned. She opened her mouth to try and explain, but no words came out.  
  
"Come on, girl!" Snape barked.  
  
Hope chewed on her lip and thought carefully. She couldn't explain why she hadn't spoken out last night; whatever happened, she couldn't get Cora into trouble. She'd just have to trust luck and keep her fingers crossed that Robert would forgive her when she had a chance to explain to him later.  
  
"Hope, I suggest you tell us what's going on," her father's voice was low and controlled. She hung her head and refused to meet his gaze, her stomach squirming more than ever. "The owl we got from school was surprising, to say the least."  
  
Hope's head jerked upwards, only to catch sight of Snape rifling officiously through a stack of parchment on the desk before him.  
  
"Surprising is scarcely the word I would have chosen, Potter," he sneered, "but then you always were the one to try and wheedle your way out of wrongdoing. Rules didn't apply to you, did they? Well I can assure you that they certainly apply to your daughter and Slytherin House."  
  
There was a screech of a chair being pushed back, and Hope flinched to see her father beginning to get to his feet, fury blazing in his eyes. Her mother's hand shot out and caught him by the arm, and the two exchanged a look that seemed to contain an unspoken conversation. Slowly, slowly her father sank back into his seat and glared venomously at the Potions Master.  
  
"Let me see," Snape's voice was unyielding and his black eyes glittered over the sheaf of papers before him, "possession of a forbidden substance resulting in severe damage to greenhouse three."  
  
"Forbidden?" Hope blurted out. "Where does it say that Ivy's Revenge is forbidden?"  
  
There was a sudden intake of breath and Hope saw her mother give a curt nod of her head as if she suddenly understood. Her lips pursed themselves into a thin line, and on occasions like this, when Mum really, truly looked like Granny, Hope knew it was time to dive for cover and hope the roof stayed on after the explosion. She definitely didn't fancy her uncles' chances once her mum got hold of them later today.  
  
"No student must bring with them harmful substances." Snape's lofty intonation sounded delighted.  
  
"Doesn't that refer to potions?" Hope's father queried. "I seem to remember- "  
  
"Seeds that happened to smash several panes in the greenhouse, injure several students, traumatise some young mandrakes to the point of needing Professor Sprout's twenty-four hour care and that's not to mention disrupting an entire lesson." Snape snapped back. "I'd say that was harmful enough. Then there was the occasion when Miss Potter decided to terrorise one of her classmates in the dormitory."  
  
Hope bit her lip and stared at her shoes. They were scuffed today, not polished like they usually were. She could see the scratches from where she'd tripped over the bucket in the cupboard with Cora and Robert. Had that really only been yesterday? It seemed like so much longer.  
  
"Savage Sheets, I believe they are called," Snape drawled. "Miss Parkinson has been suffering from nightmares ever since."  
  
"Parkinson?" Her father's voice sounded curious rather than angry. "As in Pansy?"  
  
"Her youngest sister," Snape acknowledged.  
  
"And did you find out what she'd done to provoke Hope?" her father demanded. Hope glanced up, her eyes wide with shock. Her heart was thudding madly in her chest. Her dad wasn't mad with her? Then maybe. maybe.  
  
"I suppose you'll be accusing the entire staff of having a vendetta against her next?" Snape said sharply. "What excuse can you provide for her casting charms on the staff breakfasts?"  
  
"She did what?" Her mother evidently couldn't hold back any longer.  
  
"Altered the appearance of various members of staff to expose them to ridicule." Snape looked more disapproving them ever.  
  
"Oh?" The interest from her father was unmistakeable.  
  
"Very much so," Snape retorted. "Minerva McGonagall in tight-fitting black leather; I ask you to imagine the affront of it! Hardly becoming to a witch in her position."  
  
"I put Uncle Remus in a long golden evening gown as well," Hope admitted, wriggling awkwardly on the spot, "but Professor Snape's transformation went a bit wrong."  
  
"Hope!"  
  
"Indeed." Professor Snape glared in her direction.  
  
"I'm very sorry for all the pink feathers, Professor. I really meant to turn you into a whole flamingo and I don't know where the satin negligee came from," Hope confessed.  
  
Her father choked and coughed violently for a few moments, turning puce as he struggled to control himself. He got up and paced to the towering bookshelves at one end of the dungeon, his shoulders shaking violently as he stared at the glittering golden titles on the spines and heaved in deep breaths.  
  
Finally he turned back to the rest of the room.  
  
"That was very wrong, Hope!" His face was stern but his voice warbled. "You should have known better."  
  
"Then she admits she was out of bounds last night," Snape interjected firmly. "One broken rule after another. She's caused chaos by switching the contents of the Gryffindor and Slytherin common rooms around. Then she injures herself by stealing a broom and flying into the wards, she injures others with her impetuous acts, and she's spent her entire time since she got here on detention. If she continues to behave like this, I'm afraid we will be unable to keep her here."  
  
"And Circinus has agreed to that?" her mum demanded, her dark eyes glittering fiercely at the Potions Master.  
  
"He has been informed of the situation, yes. If a student fails to respond to the discipline of the school, there is no other alternative. Perhaps Beauxbatons or Durmstrang may be more suited to her needs?"  
  
"Or perhaps you just need to talk to her and find out what's going on," Ginny retorted. She stroked the roundness of her stomach as if to soothe the child within. "This is ridiculous. Remus, Minerva, Hagrid. there are plenty of staff who know what Hope is usually like. There's something going on that none of us know about and you haven't bothered to find out."  
  
"Miss Potter?" Snape's eyes glittered as he stared at her. Hope glared back and remained mute. He'd only torment her if he knew what she was really thinking. "If your mother is correct, perhaps you'd like to make some comment and explain the reasons for your behaviour?"  
  
Hope glanced across at her parents and caught her dad's eye. She gave him a pleading look, hoping he'd understand. After a couple of moments he nodded and cleared his throat.  
  
"This is getting us nowhere, Professor. Might I suggest that Hope and I take a walk around the grounds. We'll see if we can get to the bottom of the matter."  
  
"I hardly think." Snape began, but Harry interrupted.  
  
"Do you want this sorted out or not?" he demanded. Snape inclined his head stiffly to acknowledge that he did. "Then let me speak to my daughter." He turned back to his wife. "Ginny, it'll be fine, I promise. Why don't you go and relax with Remus for a while. Even if he's teaching this morning, he won't mind you resting in his rooms until I get back. You really shouldn't have come at all, you know."  
  
"I'm staying until I make sure that Hope is all right," Ginny said fiercely. "Snape has always had it in for all things Potter, and it seems that our daughter is no exception. After all, why break the habit of a lifetime?"  
  
"I have been more than tolerant," Snape hissed back. "As you may be aware, your daughter does have potential, but she is currently more of a liability than an asset to the school."  
  
Her mother's face reddened and her eyes flashed. "Because of the way you're treat-"  
  
"Give me some time," her father interjected, his voice calming and reassuring. "I presume Hope can be excused from her lessons for an hour or so?"  
  
Snape nodded curtly. "It shall be arranged. I am available after third year Potions to discuss the matter further."  
  
"Good," her father commented.  
  
He helped his wife out of her chair and slowly they made their way towards Hope and the door. Hope saw her father wink at her and she gave him a small smile in return. A few moments later and they were in the corridor, with Snape's door closed firmly behind them.  
  
The torches flamed brightly, dancing in their sconces and illuminating the passageway in a patchwork of warm light and dark shadow. They could hear nothing but the distant sounds of the school preparing themselves for the day ahead.  
  
"He's still a git after all these years," Hope's mother exploded. "How dare he be like that?"  
  
"I'm sorry, Mum."  
  
"So you should be!" she snapped. "Seriously, Hope, I don't know what's got into you, but we're worried enough right now without you going and doing all this as well. What were you thinking?"  
  
Hope felt hot tears beginning to flood her eyes. She hadn't thought about that at all. Dad and Mum were really worried about this new baby, and she'd known that Mum hadn't to be stressed any more with things. And then she, Hope, had gone and done this. What if she'd hurt the baby or Mum with the way she'd been behaving?  
  
Then she felt gentle arms around her.  
  
"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I shouldn't have said all that," her mum said, hugging her more tightly and kissing her on her forehead. "Don't worry. We'll sort it all out, whatever it is. Dad and I will stay until it's fixed."  
  
"We will," her dad echoed. "Ginny, will you be ok? You'll send someone if you need me?"  
  
Her mum smiled weakly back at him and then smoothed Hope's hair back from her face. "I'll go and see Remus and see what he has to say. I can't imagine the picture's as black as Snape is painting it anyway."  
  
"It is," Hope said glumly.  
  
"I'm sure I've done worse," her father chuckled and took his daughter's hand in his. "Come on, let's go for a walk."  
  
The three of them parted company in the entrance hall. Ginny made her way slowly up the marble staircase, and Harry paused, watching her for a while, as if to reassure himself, before he finally turned to Hope and raised his eyebrows.  
  
"Any preference?"  
  
She shook her head, and followed him out of the front door, down the steps and onto the Hogwarts lawns that sloped down in front of the castle and lead to the lake.  
  
It was a sunny morning, with a slight nip of freshness in the air. Birds wheeled overhead, chattering and cawing to each other in a cacophony of discordant tunes. The trees rustled in the breeze, their leaves still green for now, but with hints of autumnal yellow for those who cared to look.  
  
Hope shivered slightly.  
  
"Cold?" her dad asked.  
  
She shook her head, but he swept off his cloak anyway and draped it round her shoulders. She smiled to see it flowing out on the ground behind her like a coronation train. It reminded her of when she used to play dressing up in some of mum's robes when she had been younger and pretending to be a princess. That was back in the days when everything was perfect, not like now. A muttered spell and the fabric shrank upwards, until it brushed around her ankles.  
  
"Suits you," her father laughed, "but you're not keeping it." He took her hand again and they wandered in silence towards the lake. Hope kept shooting sideways glances up at him, trying to work out what he was thinking, but his face was impenetrable.  
  
He turned anti-clockwise to follow a well-trodden earthen path around the lake. The path was worn smooth through years of use and twisted its way along the shore. Tree roots jutted out and crossed their way, but they strolled on in silence. A tentacle lazily broke through the surface of the water and splashed back down again, making the lake glitter as millions of little droplets rained back down again.  
  
Finally her father paused and clambered easily over the roots of a particularly large tree. Hope followed him, wobbling slightly over the unfamiliar ground and using her hands to steady herself in case she toppled forwards and landed in the lake. She rounded the corner and found her dad sitting in a sheltered spot, on a large root that protruded from the ground before sinking back into the depths of the earth once more. He smiled and patted the space next to him, indicating that she should join him.  
  
"Your mum and I used to come here a lot," he explained, and stared out across the water. "It was somewhere we could sit and talk without other people bothering us all the time. She yelled at me once, right here, for trying to be responsible for things that weren't my fault. I didn't understand what she meant at the time, but now I know she was right."  
  
"You really loved it here, didn't you, Dad?"  
  
"And you don't?"  
  
Hope shook her head and stared out across the rippling lake. She waited for her dad to say something, but he didn't. The warmth of his body beside hers was reassuring. Hope took a deep breath. He was waiting to hear what she had to say.  
  
"I'm in Slytherin, Dad."  
  
There it was. The words that had made her entire world end. The words that must have crushed her family when they read them in her letter. She was in Slytherin.  
  
"I know." His words were very matter-of-factly spoken. There was no trace of disappointment in his tones. Hope whirled around to stare at him, her jaw hanging open in surprise.  
  
"B-But it's Slytherin," she managed to say. "Not Gryffindor."  
  
"And you're you, not me," he replied.  
  
"But I wanted to be like you," she whispered. "I wanted to be like Mum, and Granny and Grandpa and Uncle Ron and. I didn't want to be different."  
  
"You're not so different," he smiled and ruffled her hair with his hand.  
  
"I'll bet the hat didn't even think of putting any of the rest of the family in Slytherin," she grumbled, and scowled so fiercely at a nearby water rat, that he squeaked in terror and tore off into his burrow at an alarming rate.  
  
"You reckon?" her father laughed.  
  
She glanced up at him curiously.  
  
"I've never told you about my Sorting, have I?" he murmured, hugging her closely. "In fact, come to think about it, your mum doesn't even know about it; neither do Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione. The hat was very keen to put me in Slytherin. I can still remember what it said, even now. 'You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that.' So I was almost in Slytherin myself. I suppose I should have warned you about it really."  
  
"You were nearly put in Slytherin?" Hope was amazed. She'd had no idea. "How come you ended up in Gryffindor then?"  
  
"I asked the hat not to put me in Slytherin. Like you I'd heard some pretty awful things about people in that house and I thought that any place had to be better than that."  
  
"It is pretty awful," Hope murmured.  
  
"All of it?" Her dad looked carefully at her.  
  
"Yes." Hope stopped dead. No, that wasn't strictly speaking true. She liked Cora a lot, and Belford was all right as well, really. And the dungeons weren't the way she'd always imagined them to be; her lakeside view from her bedroom window was beautiful. "Bits aren't so bad," she admitted at length.  
  
"All houses have got some people in them who are difficult to get on with," her dad said gently. "I know I didn't always get on well with everyone in Gryffindor. I even had a big row with your Uncle Ron once and we weren't speaking for ages. Seamus Finnegan in my dormitory avoided me for the whole of my fifth year because of rumours the Daily Prophet were spreading about me."  
  
"But, that's not the same as being in Slytherin," Hope argued.  
  
"Being in Slytherin doesn't make you into a different person, you know," her dad replied. "You're still the same person we love."  
  
Hope choked and swallowed hard. They still loved her? Even after all this bother she'd been causing because of her Sorting?  
  
"Y-You must've been really disappointed in me when you found out," she croaked.  
  
"Disappointed?" Her father shook his head. "No. We were worried about you, mostly because of all the stories we'd told you about the less nice Slytherins when we were at school. We thought we might have made things more difficult than they needed to be for you. Granny was furious when your letter arrived and we saw that the Sorting Hat had upset you so much, so she sent it a Howler."  
  
"A Howler?" Hope choked back a giggle.  
  
"A really good one," her father chuckled. "An amazingly loud rant about how dare it traumatise her granddaughter like that and it had better be careful the next time she was at Hogwarts because she'd hunt it down, unpick its seams and it could see how much sorting it could do then. By the time she'd finished, it wouldn't be the Sorting Hat any more, it'd be the Sorting Cloth!  
  
"Of course, hats don't have hands, so it couldn't open the letter, and Granny had bewitched it so that no one else could either. According to Professor McGonagall, it exploded a couple of days ago and singed the brim quite badly."  
  
Hope laughed.  
  
"No one loves you any less for being in Slytherin," her dad continued. "We love you for being you."  
  
"But Slytherins aren't nice," Hope interjected.  
  
"What? All of them?"  
  
"W-ell, Cora's ok, and I suppose Belford and some of the boys are all right, but Parkinson's a cow," Hope said honestly.  
  
"Her sister was as well," her dad chuckled, "but she shouldn't be someone you can't deal with, although you might want to remove the evidence from your trunk before Snape discovers it next time."  
  
Hope hesitated, and glanced up at her dad. His green eyes twinkled down at her, looking very much like her own.  
  
"Dad, I've not hurt Mum or the baby with all this, have I?"  
  
Her father rested his head against the tree trunk, closed his eyes and sighed. Then he looked back at his daughter. "I don't know, Hope," he admitted. "It wasn't the best of things you could have done, but we've just got to deal with things as well as we can. The most important thing is that you're all right and we know what's best to do from here. Was it all because you were put into Slytherin?"  
  
Hope's insides sank. It all sounded so stupid now. It was just a house like any other one, wasn't it? She was still having the same lessons with the same teachers as she would have had in Gryffindor. She could still play Quidditch. She could still use the same library. She could still make friends and have fun.  
  
"I didn't want to be in Slytherin," she said in a small voice. "I thought I'd let you all down. I wanted to come home."  
  
"And when they wouldn't let you home, you tried to get expelled," her father finished up the sentence for her. Hope nodded miserably. "Hope, look at me." She did as she was asked, and her father spoke again in a very gentle tone. "Do you want to come home? If you're so unhappy here, I'd rather take you home with us today than let you struggle on feeling the way you do. We can sort things out so that you can follow the basic curriculum at home under our supervision, or like Snape said, we can think about Beauxbatons or Durmstrang if you'd rather. None of us want you to be miserable."  
  
Hope's mind whirled. Her dad meant this. She could walk free from Slytherin today if she wanted to. She could go home.  
  
.But then again, it would mean leaving a lot of things behind. Her family weren't disappointed in her like she'd thought they'd be. They were proud of her for being at Hogwarts and knew she had it in her to be a success. Leaving would mean letting Cora deal with Parkinson and Lambert on her own; leaving would mean that she'd never get to do the things at school she'd always dreamed of; leaving was the coward's way out, and Hope Potter was no coward.  
  
"I want to stay," she heard herself saying.  
  
"Even if it means staying in Slytherin?"  
  
"Even then," she said.  
  
"So no more trying to get yourself expelled," her father said firmly. "We don't expect you to be an angel, but neither do we expect you to be out looking for trouble, or getting poor old Robert into trouble either."  
  
"Cora was with me," Hope explained. "That's why I couldn't let Snape know I was there last night. I couldn't get her into trouble as well, or I'd have let him know I was there as well when he caught Robert."  
  
Her father chuckled. "I'm saying nothing about you staying within bounds at night," he winked. "I was wandering around far more than I should have ever been, but it was usually for a good reason."  
  
"I was trying to come home to talk to you. Stealing the broom to come home didn't help because of the wards," Hope whispered, "but there's a secret passageway on the fourth floor through to Hogsmeade."  
  
Her father gave a sudden start.  
  
"How do you know about that?" he demanded.  
  
Hope shrugged. It was true, she didn't know how she knew her way around the castle. Somehow, this was something she didn't want to tell her dad about. Not yet, anyway. He had enough to worry about without her telling him about strange things that she thought she was seeing.  
  
"I think you might have told me about it once," she said.  
  
"I'd be surprised," her dad said. "That one was blocked back in my days at school, and we never used it."  
  
"Maybe it was one of Aunt Hermione's books then," Hope suggested.  
  
"Could be," her dad agreed. He reached over and dug deeply into one of his cape pockets, and withdrew a very old and tattered piece of parchment. And unfolded it so she could see it clearly. She stared curiously at it, wondering why her father had kept something like that.  
  
"For goodness sakes, don't tell your mother I've given you this," her dad chuckled, "but I really think that if you're going to be doing something you shouldn't be doing, not that you would ever dream of doing something like that, but if you were, then you should be prepared. Snape knows about this map and so does Remus, so be careful about who sees it. Remus was one of its creators, along with my dad and his best friend, Sirius."  
  
"A map? What does it do? I can't see anything."  
  
Her father grinned wickedly and pointed his wand at the map. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," he said.  
  
Lines suddenly shot out, covering the parchment at a rapid speed. Towers and turrets were outlined, and small dots appeared, clustered into classrooms and one or two stray students and staff pacing around in the corridors.  
  
"It's a map of Hogwarts," her father explained, "showing everyone within the castle and the grounds. There we are," and he indicated two little dots on the southern shore of the lake, clearly labelled with their names. "And there's your mother," he pointed out a new dot in what Hope recognised as Remus' office.  
  
"Wow!" she breathed. "Look! There's my class in History of Magic. Corona Maguire, Matthew Belford, Priscilla Parkinson. Look Dad! Everyone's in there."  
  
Her father grinned at her enthusiasm. "It's particularly handy when you're out of bounds at night. You can see someone coming." He looked meaningfully at her. "No more upsetting your mum."  
  
"I won't," Hope promised.  
  
"Then this is yours for the time you're here," her father said, and left the parchment in her hands. "Tap it again with your wand and say, 'Mischief Managed' when you're finished and the parchment turns blank again. It looks like it's altered a bit to suit the new layout of the castle as well, so you should find it's pretty useful."  
  
"It's brilliant. Thanks, Dad!"  
  
They sat in silence for a while, Hope watching the tiny dots on the map swarming around the place like thousands of tiny ants. The bell had evidently gone and she was absorbed in seeing the students flow from one lesson to the next, jumbling and swirling round the paper.  
  
"You're going to have to apologise to Snape, you know?" her father said at last.  
  
"I know," she replied. "I'll try my hardest not to let you down any more. I'm sorry, Dad."  
  
"It'll be fine, Hope," he reassured her. "Snape will probably have you in detention for a while just to prove his point." Hope groaned and pulled a face. Her father laughed. "You'd have had the same punishments at home, so don't go complaining about that, but I am going to talk to him about what's been happening and why."  
  
"But Dad."  
  
"Trust me." He smiled at her once more and got to his feet, dusting down his robes as he did so. "Is there anything else you want to talk to me about before we go back?"  
  
Hope shook her head. "Lessons and things are going pretty well really," she said as they started off round the lake again to complete their circuit. "History of Magic is dead boring, but I really like Transfiguration. I stuffed it up a bit the other day. You know how you get matches to turn into needles?"  
  
She rattled on, telling her father stories about the things that had happened when she was using magic. He laughed at the things that had gone wrong, and was duly impressed at the switching spells she'd performed.  
  
When they finally got back to the castle, he have her a huge hug, and sent her on her way to lessons. She bounded up the stairs, grinning back at him one last time. They loved her and everything was all right again. Portraits smiled and waved at her as she went past and she felt like a huge weight of misery had been lifted from her. Perhaps school was going to be fun after all.  
  
It was with a much happier heart that she arrived in Professor Flitwick's lesson and to her delight, she managed to levitate her feather just below the ceiling, rather than sending it crashing through to the classroom above as she had last week.  
  
After dinner that evening, she reported to Professor Snape's dungeon, prepared for another lengthy detention. She discovered her head of house at his desk, briskly marking his way through a pile of essays. He glanced up as she approached his desk and put his quill down.  
  
"I'm sorry for my behaviour, Professor," she said, and actually meant it this time. "I've had a long chat with my dad and I promise I won't do anything like that ever again. I know I've caused a lot of work for you and I'm sorry."  
  
"I understand you've been unhappy here," Snape said.  
  
Hope nodded. "I thought everyone would be disappointed in me. I know that's not true now. I'm going to try a lot harder to make them proud of me."  
  
"Good." Snape seemed to be almost smiling at her. "I understand from your father you are somewhat skilled at flying and potentially good on the Quidditch field. From my own observation of you on that stolen broom, it would appear to be a fair assessment. Should today's improved effort and behaviour continue, I will consider permitting you to try out for the Slytherin Quidditch team as a reserve. The rules were once bent in favour of your father and Gryffindor, I cannot see why the no first year rule could not be flexed once more to benefit yourself and Slytherin."  
  
"Sir!" Hope could barely contain her excitement. "You mean it? I could really.? Honestly?"  
  
"Certainly," Snape said abruptly. "However, should your behaviour and application in lessons fail to meet acceptable standards, you will not be permitted to fly. Is that clear?"  
  
"Perfectly clear, Professor," Hope was virtually dancing on the spot. This was amazing. How on earth had her dad managed to talk Snape into this?  
  
"Now there are a stack of cauldrons for you to clean, without magic," Snape said and lazily waved his hand in their direction. "Should you complete the next two weeks satisfactorily, I will permit you to send for your broom from home."  
  
Hope bounced delightedly across the classroom and rolled up her sleeves with enthusiasm. The grease and grime awaiting her could not do anything to quell her delight, and she cheerfully tackled the towering stack of revolting cleaning. She was going to play Quidditch!  
  
Several hours later, she toiled her way back down to the common room and collapsed beside Cora and the others. She wiped a grimy sleeve across her forehead and was about to settle back in her chair when a persistent tapping made her look round. A dark silhouette of an owl was perched on the windowsill and as she opened it, Balthasar hopped through it, onto the arm of her chair. He had a small scroll of parchment tied to his leg and Hope unravelled it quickly. The message was in her dad's handwriting, and the single line it contained made her beam uncontrollably.  
  
"Looking forward to cheering Slytherin on in the next match." 


	9. A New Beginning

Chapter 9  
  
A Fresh Start  
  
"What's that you've got there, Belford?"  
  
Hope craned her neck to try and see further down the table. Parkinson was openly sneering at a parcel her classmate had just opened at the breakfast table.  
  
"Nothing," he said quickly and tried to bundle everything back together again and stuff it into his pocket before Parkinson had a chance to pry further.  
  
"It doesn't look like nothing to me," she said in a way that made Hope's blood begin to boil. Parkinson snatched at the parcel and Matthew Belford glared back at her, even though he was turning redder by the minute.  
  
"Why don't you leave him alone?" Hope snapped.  
  
"Oooh, little Potter's got herself a boyfriend, has she?" Parkinson smirked. "No class and no taste, Belford. You don't have much going for you, do you?"  
  
Belford's face so glowed fiercely at this that it blended with the Gryffindor banner hanging behind him on the furthest side of the Great Hall.  
  
"Better that than no manners!"  
  
"As if you'd know," the raven-haired girl sneered. "Potters are all the same. They always act as if the world owes them everything, and expect everyone to drop down and worship them. It's not going to work with me. I can see right through you!"  
  
Cora dolloped some marmalade on her toast and glanced acerbically at Priscilla Parkinson. "If you're feeling like you're not good enough, I can't see what Hope can do about that. It's hardly Matthew's fault that he's got a parcel when your family have forgotten to send you one."  
  
"At least I've got a family to send me things," Parkinson retorted.  
  
Hope's head spun quickly, ready to leap to the defence of her friend. Her fists were clenched at her sides. How dare she say something like that?  
  
"Except they haven't sent you anything, have they?" Cora smiled sweetly at the other girl and took a large bite out of her toast. Parkinson tossed her head and gave a disgruntled snort of disgust. She sat awkwardly, with her back half-turned to the other three and began chatting to some older Slytherins on her other side.  
  
"Wonder where her poodle is today?" Cora mouthed, jerking her head towards Parkinson. Hope shook her head and shrugged. There was no sign of Rose Lambert along the Slytherin table, not even beside the fifth member of their dormitory who was sitting glumly with a solitary cup of coffee. It was all very strange.  
  
"ROBERT MILES, HOW DARE YOU BE SUCH A DISGRACE TO THIS FAMILY?" Fierce shrieks rang from the other side of the hall, and the giggling Slytherin students craned their necks and giggled to see who had received the Howler. There were jeering and cat-calls. Hope didn't dare look. She knew the voice all too well, and sunk further down into her seat. "WE SEND YOU TO HOGWARTS AND WHAT DO YOU DO? BREAKING RULES AND BEING UP TO NO GOOD AT ALL HOURS OF THE DAY AND NIGHT. I'LL TELL YOU WHAT, YOUNG MAN, IF WE GET ONE MORE OWL TELLING US YOU'RE MISBEHAVING I'LL COME RIGHT UP TO THAT SCHOOL MYSELF AND SORT YOU OUT. BELIEVE ME, I WILL..."  
  
Hope caught sight of a familiar figure out of the corner of her eye and couldn't stand it any more. She swivelled her legs from under the bench and jumped to her feet.  
  
"Back in a bit," she muttered and hurried from the hall.  
  
She stood in the foyer, gulping in air like she'd never been allowed to breathe before. Her heart was racing. She'd never asked her dad if Robert had had an owl home about being out of bounds, but she should have suspected that Snape would be malicious like that. Robert's parents had always been strict with him, and she'd pulled him into more trouble than anyone could have guessed over the years. Robert had greeted the various punishments meted out to him with a resigned grin, claiming it to have been 'worth it', but suddenly Hope wasn't so sure it would be like that any more. She could only imagine the humiliation Robert must be feeling because of her own stupidity.  
  
Before she could chastise herself further, the door swung open amidst an undisguised roar of laughter and Robert closed it quickly behind him, blotting out the worst of the noise. He looked like he was about to burst into tears, but he held himself steady. Not even turning to look at Hope, he began to trudge up the marble staircase, his shoulders bowed and an expression of utter dejection on his face. Hope called after him, but his head just sank lower and he kept climbing.  
  
"Please Robert!" she called, springing up the flight of stairs as quickly as she could. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Wait!"  
  
She caught up with him and pulled on the sleeve of his robes. He stopped and slowly turned to face her. His blue eyes showed hurt and confusion, and Hope could understand why. She'd have reacted far worse if Robert had landed her in trouble and stood by doing nothing to help her. That wasn't what their friendship was about.  
  
"I'm a git," she said.  
  
The corners of Robert's mouth quirked into the smallest of smiles, but he said nothing.  
  
"I'm the gittiest git in gitdom, and I'm surprised you've not punched me or something. I deserve it."  
  
"I did think about it," Robert admitted honestly, "but that probably would have got us both another detention and I'm in enough trouble already. Just let it go, Hope. I'll be all right, even if Mum does want to kill me right now."  
  
"No change there, then," Hope tried to joke, but it fell flat. Robert's eyes sank to the floor again and he shifted uncertainly from one foot to another.  
  
"I told Snape it was my fault."  
  
Robert's head lifted quickly, confusion knitting his eyebrows closely together.  
  
"I can't believe he owled your parents," Hope shook her head in bewilderment. "I told him I was there, said it was my idea and everything. But..."  
  
"It's because he didn't see you," Robert sighed.  
  
Hope's insides twisted. She understood now what had hurt Robert more than anything. It wasn't the detention, or the Howler, or even his parents' disappointment in him. It was the fact she had failed to stand by him and face the punishment together.  
  
"I couldn't," she whispered. "I don't blame you for hating me, but I couldn't."  
  
Robert's perplexed expression returned in full force. "What are you talking about?"  
  
"Cora was hiding with me. She was begging me not to let her get caught because her mum would never forgive her. If I'd stood up in the alcove and let Snape see me, and I was trying to, I'd have got her caught as well. I saw he'd got you and I'd have been there in a second, but it would have got Cora into bother and wouldn't have helped you get out of it. I went to see Snape before breakfast to tell him it was me. I told him it wasn't your fault for being out of bounds. I'm so stupid."  
  
"Yeah, you are." Hope's heart sank for a second until she caught Robert's eye twinkling at her.  
  
"Not as stupid as you."  
  
"Want to bet?"  
  
She giggled and pushed him away from her. He shoved back and she lost her balance and grabbed at his arm. The two of them toppled down a few steps and fell onto the half-landing with a thump in a tangle of limbs and robes. Both were helpless with laughter. A nearby portrait coughed and shook his venerable head disapprovingly at the pair of them.  
  
"Sorry," she repeated. "If I'm ever out of bounds again, I promise I'll not drag you into it."  
  
"You're kidding, right?" Robert sounded incredulous. "After everything we've been through together, you'd seriously think of not taking me along?"  
  
She looked carefully at him. This was Robert; she'd known him virtually all of her life. He knew what she was thinking before she did half of the time. They'd grown up falling off brooms together and making all the adults around them despair at their antics and the state of their clothes afterwards. Being without him was like not having an arm or a leg.  
  
"Friends?"  
  
Robert laughed and hugged her quickly. "I'd not have it any other way."  
  
The doors to the Great Hall swung open once more, and Hope and Robert quickly scrambled to their feet, standing casually apart as if they'd been there all along. A tide of Ravenclaws surged up the stairs, and there was a giggled murmur about the 'Howler boy' on the way past. Robert shot a furtive glance at Hope, his blue eyes dancing with mischief.  
  
"Oh, you've got it coming, Potter. Just you wait!"  
  
"Got to catch me first!" Hope shrieked and flew back down the stairs at breakneck speed, with Robert in hot pursuit.  
  
They bumped and jostled their way through the ever-increasing numbers of students leaving breakfast and heading towards their early morning classes, finally collapsing in a breathless state against the dungeon wall outside Snape's classroom. The shared grin quickly evaporated as the classroom door slid open, and the distinctive shape of the Potions Master filled the void.  
  
Hope found that the day passed far more quickly now that she was actually trying to do well in her lessons. Her quill scribbled and scraped across the parchment in her haste to get the notes down and catch up on what she'd missed through her own inattention the previous week. Snape nodded at her as she left his room, showing a faint sense of approval, yet Professor Sprout regarded her warily throughout Herbology. With the promise of Quidditch at stake, Hope was determined to show she'd changed, even to the point of ignoring Parkinson's whispered taunts.  
  
She dug ferociously in the potting compost, pleased to see that there had been definite growth in her fungi after last week's lesson. It hadn't been as good as Matthew's toadstool, but it wasn't so shabby all the same.  
  
"Rose Lambert's still not here," Cora muttered when Professor Sprout's back was turned. "Wonder what's happened..." Belford glanced swiftly up at them and his eyes scanned the room with interest. He winked at Cora and his stool scraped backwards over the tiled flooring.  
  
"Hey, Flint! Can I borrow your watering can?"  
  
Professor Sprout's head turned momentarily, and Belford strode brazenly across the classroom to collect the equipment from a thickset boy whose dark eyebrows resembled very furry caterpillars. Hope saw the heads from the table lean together and an urgent conversation took place. By the time Professor Sprout had turned round again, Belford was back in his place, watering his own project.  
  
"She's in the hospital wing," he said in an undertone. "The others don't know what's wrong with her, but apparently she turned up there in the middle of the night and Pomfrey hasn't let her have any visitors yet. Didn't you hear anything happening in the dormitory?"  
  
Hope and Cora both shook their heads. His eyes locked momentarily with Hope's, as he sank back into his seat, missing it completely and disappearing from site with an audible thump and groan from the floor. The noise made their teacher bear down upon them, so any further discussion of the matter was abruptly curtailed.  
  
***  
  
There were gasps of admiration in the common room when the news got out, and some envious questions from Belford's friends. Belford himself, hadn't quite understood the enormity of the situation.  
  
"Quidditch?" he asked. "Sounds like a cross between a coin and a hole in the road."  
  
"It's absolutely the best feeling in the world," Hope enthused. "Out there and flying so fast, pitting your wits against the other players and..."  
  
"There's the frantic battle for the Quaffle!" Flint joined in with equal passion. "All the dodging and shoving to try and score."  
  
"My dad's got season tickets to watch Puddlemere United," another boy said.  
  
"They're bottom of the league now," someone else scoffed. "Their Keeper would let the Knight Bus through the hoops."  
  
"That's not true!"  
  
The conversation escalated madly in terms of fervour and noise. Hope had just laughed and turned back round to where Cora was still sitting, and found her looking rather surprised.  
  
"You're Muggleborn?" Cora asked, so that only the three of them could hear.  
  
Belford's lips tightened and he nodded silently.  
  
"Really?" Hope's smile brightened, but Matthew avoided her gaze. "Aunt Hermione's family are dentists, but they're the only Muggles I know. That's really cool!"  
  
Cora shook her head slowly.  
  
"Haven't you learnt yet? It's wrong to be anything other than from a perfect pureblood family. Maybe other houses are different, but Slytherin's always been the same. You fit the ideal or you're out."  
  
"But that's absolute... bollocks!" she finished up, remembering a particularly useful word from Uncle Ron. "As if being pureblood makes you a good person. Look at Parkinson: she's about fifty-fifth generation pureblood and hasn't a nice bone in her body. No one cares. Or no one worth worrying about anyway."  
  
"I wish," Matthew said fervently, and he picked at a little fraying along the edge of the rug. "We're getting on better now in the dormitory, but I'm still an outsider. My mother doesn't have lunch with Flint's, my dad doesn't drop in on the Minister for Magic for a drink and a chat about whatever the magical equivalent of golf is. I don't wear the right clothes or even know which way round to hold a broom. I'll be a complete laughing stock when we get to those flying lessons on Saturday."  
  
Hope tugged at her thumbnail with her teeth. He was probably right. Most of the Slytherins were particularly arrogant about their abilities, so maybe what they had to do was show them how wrong their estimations of someone could be.  
  
"I'll teach you to fly before the lessons start," she said abruptly. "Seriously," she added as Belford gaped at her. "I've been flying more or less since I could walk. I'll get Uncle Remus to teach me some cushioning spells as well, just in case you fall off." Matthew blanched, and Hope giggled. "It's easy. Really it is!"  
  
"If... if you say so."  
  
So the deal was struck. Each night after Quidditch practise, Belford would sneak out and wait for Hope beside the broom sheds. They'd work on his flying for half an hour and then Cora would help them to catch up with the remainder of their homework. It seemed to be a plan with no drawbacks.  
  
The balmy autumn air was cooling as Hope stepped out onto the lawns in front of the castle. The sun glowed golden in the softening sky, and for once, she stopped still and smiled. This was Hogwarts. This was her world. Cries of a mandrake shattered the stillness of the air, and the soft hooting of a few owls replied. Anticipation built in her chest until she could barely keep from dancing. She... Hope Potter... was going to Quidditch training with the Slytherin team for the very first time!  
  
She skipped down the lawns, her feet hurrying faster and faster until she was running, desperate to get to the Quidditch pitch. She'd dreamed of this all her life; admittedly the robes had been a very different colour, but it was about to become reality.  
  
The rest of the team were slouching on benches at the bottom of the Quidditch stands, chatting casually. Hope stared at the arena around her, the enormity of what was happening slowly beginning to sink in. The wind blew her bright hair in front of her face, and she impatiently tugged it away again. The sky looked vast from here, the hoops glistened with promise and house colours cheered along the empty stands.  
  
"Potter?"  
  
Hope whipped round to see a burly seventh year boy holding a broom out for her.  
  
"Snape said yours hasn't arrived yet from home, but this one isn't bad. It's decent enough to put you through your paces on, at least. What are you on normally?"  
  
"A Silver Lightning 511," she said in a meek voice that sounded little like her own.  
  
He whistled. "Good broom, that one. Snape reckons you're a decent little flyer. You must be; it's not like him to break the rules for anyone."  
  
Hope began to flush. The others were all looking at her with a good deal of curiosity, and they were all so much bigger than she was. Would she ever manage to hold her own on the Quidditch pitch at school level?  
  
"I'm Magus Stebbins, Slytherin Captain," the boy explained, walking with Hope across the pitch towards the centre. "I'm one of the Beaters on the team. What are you like at playing Seeker? I only ask because Snape's threatening to pull Quimby over there off the team because his love life is making him get behind with his O.W.L.s work. It's not a good sign if that's happening already, so if you can slot into his position, I'll love you forever!"  
  
"I could give it a go," Hope said, grinning with relief.  
  
"You'll be great! I saw your dad playing last season, and if you can do a fraction of what he can, we'll trounce the other houses without breaking into a sweat."  
  
Hope watched as the other members of the Quidditch team kicked off and soared effortlessly into the air. They moved into formation and began soaring through a warm-up routine, circling the posts and swooping across the central line, one after the other. Stebbins glanced at his team and mounted his own broom.  
  
"Let's get up there."  
  
Hope needed no further encouragement, and kicked off from the ground at once. The broom wasn't as responsive as her real one, but she didn't care; she was flying again! Even if Snape had given her fifty detentions on the spot, it couldn't have wiped the smile off her face. Stebbins beckoned to her to follow him, so she leaned forward and the broom shot off towards the goal posts, looping them easily and following into a fairly gentle dive. He checked back over his shoulder and she grinned widely at him, shaking her hair back out of her eyes.  
  
"You'll have to do something about that lot!" he yelled about the torrent of russet red whirling behind her head. "Too easy a target for the other side's Beaters. Stops you seeing as well. Keep up!"  
  
She urged her broom faster, gripping it tightly and loving the sting of the air against her face more than ever. It seemed like she'd been bound to earth for eternity. A sharper rise then a turn and an unexpected plummet to earth. She twisted down and down, the wind now tearing at her face and clothing as the ground dizzyingly surged towards her. She caught up and levelled with Stebbins before pulling up short of the turf and hovering a moment to catch her breath.  
  
"Bloody good," he said. "Didn't think you'd have the nerve for that one. Give it a go with the Snitch before it gets too dark."  
  
With that, he rummaged in his inside pocket and with a little whirring and zipping noise, the little golden ball zoomed off out of sight. Hope grinned happily and swerved off, her eyes and ears hunting for the tiniest of clues to the Snitch's whereabouts. She was aware of Stebbins cursing at the Chasers for their lack of precision, of them performing the manoeuvres time and time again until he was satisfied, yet she saw nothing. Her senses strained for that glimmer of devilish gold, and it was only when ducking from a Bludger that the other Beater, Dryadne Littleton, had accidentally sent hurtling in her direction that she finally saw it.  
  
Amid a torrent of curses from Stebbins, Hope shot forwards, twisting tightly to her left and then straight down following the nervous twitching of the Snitch. It doubled back on itself, and Hope pulled out of a dive harder than she'd ever done before. The broom was shaking in her grasp as she forced it round, willing it to move.  
  
"Come on!" She heard the expectant roar behind her as Stebbins had clearly spotted what was going on.  
  
She looped back, rolling under the shaft of her broom and then straightening up to dart like an arrow, straight through the rest of the team towards the goal hoops. The Snitch fluttered one way, then zipped in the opposite direction as quickly as it could. Hope stretched out her arm and leaned into a circular spin. Closer and closer, she circled above the nervous ball. It jerked a little and Hope plunged straight downwards, arm outstretched, adrenaline throbbing through every inch of her body as she palmed the tiny little ball, clamping her fingers tightly around its struggling form to prevent its escape.  
  
Whoops of appreciation came from the players who watched from below, and Hope shakily pulled herself straight and floated back down to earth.  
  
"Quimby'd better watch out," Dryadne Littleton called over. "He'd never have caught that in a month of Sundays. Fancy retiring now, dear heart?"  
  
Quimby winked at Hope and threw the Quaffle square at his girlfriend's chest. "I've better luck with the girls than the Snitch, Dryadne. You should know that!"  
  
Stebbins was grinning like he'd won a thousand Galleons in The Daily Prophet Prize Draw. "Not bad for a kid," he teased and ruffled her hair. "You never know, we might even substitute you on for part of the first match. As long as Snape gets that no first year rule waived, I've a good feeling about this season!"  
  
Hope collapsed back on the grass feeling the happiest she had yet at Hogwarts. How her father had fixed this with Snape, she had no idea, but she owed him one. As soon as she'd finished teaching Belford, she was going to go straight up to the Owlery to send him a thank you note and a long description of the training session.  
  
The others slowly began trooping back to the castle at the end of training and Hope looked around her for Belford. She ducked behind the broom sheds but found the place entirely deserted but for a lone figure somewhere further along the stands.  
  
Hope waved madly and raced in the direction of the observer. She hoped Belford had seen the practice and wouldn't be as nervous about flying as he'd been earlier. It wasn't fair for the other Slytherins to taunt him and if Hope could do anything about it, he'd be flying like an expert before the first of their proper lessons.  
  
As she neared the figure, she slowed down and jogged to a halt. It wasn't Belford at all, but a slender girl of about her own age with a long pigtail hanging down her back; the girl who shared her dormitory. She stood up, with a ramrod-straight back and stared at Hope in the unfriendliest of manners.  
  
"What?" Hope demanded. "What have I done?"  
  
The girl sniffed and an expression of disgust and loathing twisted her features. Hope couldn't understand it. She'd barely spoken to the girl and yet she was hated by her. It didn't make sense.  
  
"Very clever, Hope Potter," the girl said in a dangerously cold monotone. "You have it all now: fame, wealth, Quidditch success, the world at your feet."  
  
"I don't!" Hope objected. "I wouldn't want all that anyway. I was only flying, that's all!"  
  
The girl smiled - a dry, wry smile with no warmth behind it. Hope felt herself shiver.  
  
"The gods amongst us can fly, yet the rest of us are earthbound; isn't that the way you've always been regarded? You're the valiant protector of the wizarding world. You're our saviour."  
  
Hope stared at her, having no comprehension of what the girl was driving at. "I'm nobody's saviour," she said at last. "Whatever happened when I was a baby wasn't me at all. I know Dumbledore used my magic to bring down Voldemort, but he was controlling it, not me. If anyone deserves the respect and admiration, it's him."  
  
The girl looked as if she might be sick with disgust. "Hope Potter, the shining beacon of all that is good. She Who Can Do No Wrong."  
  
Hope shook her head wildly. "That's not me. I do stuff wrong all the time. Ask Snape, if you don't believe me. I've been in detention since I got here!"  
  
"Detention?" the girl sneered quietly. "Such a punishment!"  
  
The sarcasm rankled deeply with Hope and she clambered across the seating to face the girl directly.  
  
"What is your problem?" Hope demanded. "What did I ever do to you?"  
  
"To me? Why should the glorious Hope Potter care?"  
  
Hope felt like throwing something hard at the irritating girl, but there was nothing nearby. She gritted her teeth and tried to keep her temper.  
  
"I'll try not to care if you flaming tell me what's wrong."  
  
The girl gave a short bark of a laugh, like a seal.  
  
"You don't have a clue, do you?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"You, Hope Potter, are the single reason why my life is ruined. You've caused so much heartache and ripped families apart. What gives you the right to have done that? What makes you the god to decide our destinies?"  
  
Hope staggered backwards, gazing with horror at the girl. She didn't understand at all. The girl's face was white and pinched, her eyes glistening with tears.  
  
"Allow me to introduce myself," the girl said in a steely-calm voice. "My name is Rachel MacNair. Because of you, my father has been in Azkaban for the last ten years of my life." 


	10. The Executioner's Daughter

Chapter 10  
  
The Executioner's Daughter  
  
MacNair? Hope screwed up her face, trying to remember the last time she'd heard that name. The grown-ups had been discussing something they hadn't wanted her to overhear and the kitchen door had been only slightly ajar when Aunt Hermione had said something.  
  
"Don't try and look concerned, it doesn't suit you," the girl spat, and shoved Hope aside so that she could climb past her to go back to the castle.  
  
Hope's temper suddenly snapped. Rachel MacNair was being about as unfair as you could get. It wasn't as if Hope had had any control over what had gone on when she was a baby, no more than this Rachel person could have stopped her dad from hanging around with Voldemort. No way was she going to put up with this.  
  
She swung around to face Rachel, and grabbed hold of her arm to prevent her escape.  
  
"Don't you dare talk to me like that!"  
  
The girl turned back, with a most unpleasant sneer contorting her face. "I'll talk to you anyway I want, Potter. Not that you're worth talking to anyway. People like you aren't." She tried to pull away from Hope, but the smaller girl wouldn't let her.  
  
"Yeah, right!" Hope retorted scathingly. "I'd be proud of having a dad in Azkaban too. It makes you such a better person."  
  
Rachel hissed in a breath, her eyes blazing with a new fury. She lunged at Hope, fists flailing, but Hope was ready for her and dodged. She leapt onto one of the benches and had started running down the steps to the pitch, when Rachel grabbed hold of her ankle and the ground disappeared from underneath Hope's feet. She grabbed the robes of her assailant and the two girls crashed their way down the stands, landing painfully on the grass below.  
  
Hope heard a curse just before a vicious fist crashed into her stomach.  
  
"Don't ever... insult... my... dad!" Rachel panted. "Never!"  
  
Hope rolled sideways, escaping a second blow and then dived back into the fray. She hauled on Rachel's long braid like a bell rope, causing her to screech. Frenzied fingers clawed at Hope's face and then tangled themselves in her own hair, ripping and scratching without mercy. Hope fought back furiously, kicking her opponent and trying to pin her to the ground.  
  
For a split second, she gazed into Rachel's eyes, filled with a seething hatred such as Hope had never known. Rachel's eyes narrowed and her fist pounded remorselessly into Hope's side, throwing her off balance and hard onto the ground.  
  
Hope groaned, and was just rolling over to get her revenge when a pair of hands caught her shoulders and held her firmly. Hope struggled like a wild cat, fighting against the person who held her, fighting so that she could show Rachel MacNair exactly what she thought of her and her beloved Death Eater of a father.  
  
"Hope! Stop it! Just stop!"  
  
Belford's voice.  
  
"Oh no you don't!" he yelled, and Hope felt his hands lift away from her and swing in the opposite direction. She glanced up to see that he'd caught Rachel and was forcibly preventing her from continuing the fight. Hope smiled with grim satisfaction when she observed MacNair's bloodied nose. That would teach her.  
  
"Potter needs to learn what pain feels like!" Rachel snarled. "This is nothing!"  
  
Hope's fury bubbled violently and she leapt at Rachel once more. Matthew braced himself between them, caught Hope in his arms and yelled, "Stop! Snape's going to go mad!"  
  
"Indeed."  
  
The single word dropped on the three of them like a shower of icy rain. They froze in a painful tableau, not daring to move as their Head of House circled them slowly and surveyed the situation.  
  
Hope's heart thudded painfully in her chest as she watched the familiar glittering black eyes harden. The anger still pumping through her veins slowly started to chill with the growing realisation that he was going to punish her by taking away her Quidditch. Her defiant gaze fell. Every sting and ache from her growing bruises told her that she deserved this.  
  
"Belford?" The name was barked, and Matthew suddenly seemed to wake up from the petrified trance he'd been held in. He leapt away from Hope as if he'd been scalded. "Tell me what happened."  
  
"I-I don't know, Sir," Matthew stuttered. "I-I was..." He glanced nervously at Hope, turning redder than ever. He faltered to a stop, clearly not wanting another Slytherin to know that Hope was teaching him how to fly.  
  
"My office! Now! All three of you!"  
  
In silence they trooped back to the castle, Snape bringing up the rear with his robes billowing out behind him like some sort of deathly parachute slowing down time. It took forever to reach the dungeons and by the time Snape opened the door to his classroom, Hope was shivering violently.  
  
"Sit!" Snape growled the order. Without hesitation, they sat. Their professor leaned forwards across the desk, staring intently at each of them, his lips grim and unsmiling.  
  
"MacNair!" He strode off to the small office at the back of his classroom, and Rachel MacNair followed, silently dabbing the blood from her nose with the sleeve of her robes. The door slammed shut and there was an expectant hush inside the dungeon. Matthew glanced at Hope and blushed again. He stared resolutely at the desk and jabbed at it with his finger.  
  
"Tell him what you were doing," Hope insisted. "He can't blame you. You came down so I could teach you to fly and you broke up a fight. He should be thanking you really."  
  
Matthew shook his head. "That'll mean he'll punish you by not letting you play that sport thingy. Queerdirge."  
  
In spite of her shivering, Hope chuckled. "Quidditch," she corrected him gently. She shrugged her shoulders and became despondent again. "I deserve it for fighting."  
  
"W-why were you?" Belford asked.  
  
"I'm not entirely sure," Hope murmured, wrapping her arms around herself and trying to suppress another shiver. Her robes were ripped. She'd have to mend them when Snape was finished with her... if he didn't expel her. She glanced warily at Belford and decided that she probably could trust him. "Don't laugh, all right?"  
  
Belford shook his head. Hope thought for a moment; if Matthew was from a Muggle family then he probably didn't know much about her history at all, she'd have to start from the beginning.  
  
"In the couple of years before I was born, a really evil wizard was trying to take over our world. He was called Voldemort. He killed anyone who stood in his way and tortured others and everyone was frightened of him and his own followers, who were called the Death Eaters. Dumbledore was headmaster at Hogwarts in those days and when I was born he found out that I had a certain set of magical powers he could use to defeat Voldemort. So when I was a baby, Dumbledore used my magic to kill Voldemort, and most of his followers were sent to Azkaban."  
  
Hope took a deep breath before she continued. "I found out tonight that Rachel MacNair's dad was one of those Death Eaters. He's been in Azkaban, the wizard prison, virtually all of her life and she blames me for it. She hates me because my stupid fame comes from the same thing that took her dad away from her." Her lips quivered into a sad little smile. "So there you go, it's nothing to do with you at all. Snape shouldn't take it out on you."  
  
"Poor Rachel," he murmured. Then he glanced at Hope again, colour flooding his face at a furious rate. "You're famous? I-I didn't know..."  
  
Hope laughed wryly. "Believe me, I'd rather I wasn't. I don't remember it at all, but people make an insane fuss. I suppose they were just relieved when Voldemort died, and that's why all the books were written." She pulled a horrible face, remembering some of the particularly trite and gushing paragraphs that Robert had once teased her with by reading them aloud in dramatic tones.  
  
"Books?" Matthew echoed faintly. "Then... then... oh, wow!"  
  
Hope shook her head, and her vibrant hair flew all around her in her vehemence. "No, it's a nuisance. I'm not anything special, I'm just me."  
  
Matthew sat still for a moment, then seemed to be struggling to say something. He kicked the leg of the table and Hope watched him getting redder by the minute. At length he managed to say, "Notyourfriendcosoffame."  
  
Hope blinked. "Sorry?"  
  
He kicked the table leg again and sighed. "I-I'm not just talking to you because you're famous, it's because... because..."  
  
The office door flew open once more and a tearful Rachel MacNair scuttled through the dungeon and into the corridor beyond. Silence weighed heavy upon the room again and Hope felt a swirl of nausea circle through her stomach, pushing upwards in little fluttering bursts.  
  
"Potter!"  
  
With a nervous glance at Matthew, Hope wobbled to her feet and started across the dungeon. The torches flickering around the edges of the cavernous room gave it a warm and comforting glow, but they didn't make Hope feel any better. She was doomed and she knew it.  
  
Snape closed the door behind her with a fatal click. Hope rubbed the aching knuckles on her right hand and waited. The fluttering of nerves inside her grew and grew, twisting and churning in sickening motion. Snape gestured to a simple wooden chair beside the little fire in his office, and Hope took her place. She set her jaw and looked straight at the Potions Master, ready to accept her punishment without tears.  
  
Her Head of House leaned back in his own chair, a wing-backed velvety affair and surveyed his charge momentarily. His long tapering finger tapped against his lips and then finally he leaned forwards.  
  
"So, what do you propose to do?" he asked, his tone giving little of his mood away.  
  
"Be taken off the Quidditch team as a punishment," Hope said, trying her best to keep the tremble out of her voice. "I promised I'd behave and I didn't."  
  
"No, you didn't," he said shortly, "but you are needed on the team to ensure Slytherin success this year. Quimby's ambitions appear to lie in other areas, and Stebbins spoke highly of you after practise tonight. Regardless of what you do and do not do in your life, Potter, you should never voluntarily give up something that you desperately desire for the sake of honour. That sort of nobility is reckless and foolish in the extreme, and far more suited to the idiocy of a Gryffindor. In Slytherin, you must learn that the greater good involves curbing your own impetuousness and learning to use the rules to gain the success and achievement you long for."  
  
Hope opened her mouth to insist that she didn't desire any success or achievement at all, but Snape quickly cut her off. "Don't talk nonsense, Potter. It's blatantly obvious you want to play Quidditch and win; you'd do almost anything to stay on that team."  
  
She sat up a little straighter in her chair and felt the bat-like fluttering in her stomach begin to subside a little. She nodded slowly. Snape was right; it seemed that she was ambitious after all.  
  
"So no more foolish offers of self-sacrificing punishments from you," Snape drawled. "My original question still stands: what do you propose to do?"  
  
"Stop fighting?"  
  
"Yes, yes!" Snape waved his hand as if that was of no importance. "What of Miss MacNair? I assume you know what the problem is there?"  
  
"I do now, Sir. Her father was one of the Death Eaters."  
  
"Quite so. She holds you accountable for her father's incarceration in Azkaban, and yet you have to share a dormitory with her for the next seven years. Current levels of hostility cannot continue. There are only so many sets of torn robes and bloodied noses I am prepared to tolerate, although I do concede that some conflict between the two of you was inevitable."  
  
Hope gawped at her teacher. This was the last thing she'd expected of him.  
  
"Close your mouth, Potter. You look like you're trying to catch fireflies. As I said to MacNair, the two of you must learn to work together, not against each other, and in order to bring that about, I would like you both to report to Hagrid at his hut, one hour before breakfast for the next seven days. He has some blast-ended Skrewts that could do with some exercise, and it will take you both to restrain them. At the very least, I expect a modicum of civility between the two of you by the end of your punishment. You will note that the additional Care of Magical Creatures work is in the morning, and therefore will not interfere with your Quidditch commitments."  
  
"T-thank you, Professor," Hope said, not daring to believe she'd got away with everything so lightly. One other horrible thought occurred to her and she blurted out her fear before she could stop herself. "Professor, you won't tell Mum and Dad I've been fighting, will you? I mean, I'll write to Dad and tell him myself, you can even see the letter before I owl it if you want, but Mum's really not well and I don't want to upset her and make it worse."  
  
Snape got to his feet and gestured towards the door. "I am meeting with your father early next week to discuss your progress and I dare say the matter can be raised then as your mother is unlikely to be present. Just one last thing, Potter... Belford was trying to stop you fighting, wasn't he?"  
  
"Yes! It wasn't anything to do with him," Hope said quickly. "He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."  
  
"First Miles, then Belford. Do try to stop landing your friends in trouble," her Head of House sighed. "It's no way to be treating them, however fond of you they might be."  
  
"Yes, Sir... and thank you for... Mum. Well, you know..."  
  
"Indeed I do, Miss Potter. Remember, six o' clock sharp at Hagrid's hut for your punishment. Do not be late under any circumstances."  
  
She smiled at him, and awkwardly scuttled back through the opened door into the dungeon. Her muscles were starting to stiffen and she knew that her bruises were going to be agony in the morning.  
  
"See Madam Pomfrey on the way back to your dormitory, Potter," Snape said, with a curt nod. "I believe she does a salve that may help. Belford!"  
  
Matthew leapt to his feet, looking like a terrified rabbit caught in car headlights. Hope smiled encouragingly at him and then closed the door behind her, leaving him to his fate.  
  
Half an hour later, Hope was curled up in a chair by the fire in the common room chatting to Cora. MacNair wasn't anywhere to be found, and Parkinson was scribbling away on some homework in their dormitory, thus rendering the place out of bounds. Cora was horrified by the account of the fight with Rachel MacNair and equally interested in the tale of Madam Pomfrey clucking frantically when Hope arrived in the hospital wing and taking care to draw the curtains firmly around the only occupied bed in the place.  
  
"Rose Lambert had to be in that bed," Hope whispered, "but there was something about her I wasn't supposed to see. You know she's not been allowed any visitors yet? I wonder what's wrong with her."  
  
"Allergy to Parkinson?" Cora laughed.  
  
The common room door opened and an unusually dishevelled Matthew Belford appeared through it. Hope leaned over the edge of her chair and waved him over towards them. He turned a familiar shade of pink and took two steps forwards before crashing into a small table upon which some fifth years were playing Creature Canasta. The playing cards scattered everywhere like confetti. Mighty dragons roared their protest at being toppled in such an unbecoming matter and shot jets of flame so far that a sofa ignited and began to burn merrily, cards depicting monstrous spiders grappled with a pack of Boggarts, and a few Dementor cards glided their way across the carpet to terrify a couple of unsuspecting dozing cats.  
  
Belford crept away from the uproar, stammering his apologies to the students who were trying to put out the sofa fire, and slunk into the seat beside Cora.  
  
"How did it go with Snape?" Hope demanded anxiously. "He's not punished you, has he?"  
  
"I just got a long lecture about how I shouldn't get caught," Matthew said sheepishly. "He was better than I'd expected. Some of the sixth form told me that he has flesh-eating monsters in his dungeon for wayward students."  
  
"No, Hagrid has all of those," Hope chuckled.  
  
"Ah well, you'll be having fun with those tomorrow morning," Cora teased.  
  
"So will MacNair," Hope said more grimly. "I've seen those Skrewts Snape was talking about, and it's going to take both of us to hold one. They're whoppers. Knowing my luck, she'll try and feed me to them."  
  
She moved in her seat and winced; she'd definitely stiffened up quite badly in the past hour. Cora raised her eyebrows.  
  
"The dormitory right now, Hope Potter!" she said firmly. "I'll help you to put that salve on before those bruises really come out in full force."  
  
They said their good nights to Matthew and went slowly up the spiral staircase to their room.  
  
The candles had been blown out, and judging by the drawn green curtains around Parkinson's bed, she was already settled for sleep. Lambert's bed was neatly made and empty and the third bed along, belonging to Rachel MacNair had a few objects strewn across the quilt, but the girl herself was missing. The two girls passed by Cora's bed and rounded the final corner to reach Hope's.  
  
Hope bent to retrieve a nightgown from her trunk, grunting a little and rubbing gently to try and alleviate the ache in her side. Cora lit the little lamp on Hope's bedside table with a quick flick of her wand.  
  
"Are you ever going to unpack?" Cora asked, shaking her head in disbelief at the tangle of belongings in Hope's trunk.  
  
"Maybe after Quidditch tomorrow," Hope replied. "Looks like I'm here for a while!" She leant over and drew the velvet hangings to block off their presence from the other girls in the room and then stripped out of her Quidditch gear, wincing as various muscles jarred and jolted. Cora hissed in a shocked breath.  
  
"She's done a good job, I'll give her that. You're black and blue all down this side. Are you sure there's nothing worse?"  
  
"Yeah," Hope said, twisting a little to try and see the damage Cora was talking about. "Nothing busted, other than MacNair's nose."  
  
"Looks like she deserved it," Cora commented, and unscrewed the jar Madam Pomfrey had given to Hope. There was silence for a while as the two girls liberally coated Hope's bruises with the cool salve, and she sighed blissfully as the pain started to ease away. She pulled her nightdress over her head and then turned to hug Cora.  
  
"Thanks," she said simply. "I'm glad I've got you."  
  
"Good," the other girl replied, her eyes crinkling in the corners, "because you're stuck with me now! Try not to let MacNair worry you. G'night." Cora blew out the lamp and Hope could hear her rustling round the other side of the curtains, preparing herself for sleep.  
  
Hope turned down her sheets and clambered into bed, yet she felt strangely restless when Cora had gone. She gazed out across the darkened lake, watching occasional ripples fan out and fade away in the gentle moonlight. Owls hooted softly, reassuring her with their presence and yet still she couldn't settle. She pondered over going to wake Cora and sitting on her bed to gossip for a while, but it didn't seem fair to disturb Cora's sleep too. Finally, she pulled out a spell book she'd borrowed from the library and set about reading up on easy-to-use jinxes by wandlight.  
  
The clock in the common room had chimed half past midnight, and Hope shifted onto her side. The bruising seemed to have vanished now, and she curled her legs easily beneath her. Her finger was just scanning down a page containing a particularly entertaining jinx that would make the recipient bounce like a spring, when the dormitory door creaked open. Hope stopped stock-still and held her breath.  
  
A light set of footsteps made their way down the room, past Parkinson, past Lambert's empty bed and then slowed to a standstill in the centre of the room. Hope could hear uneven breathing, as if the newcomer had been running, and the hurried tugging off of shoes that thudded onto the floor when they were discarded. Sheets and robes rustled and crinkled until finally the creak and groan of a moving mattress told Hope that Rachel MacNair was now safely ensconced in her four-poster bed. Brass curtain rings rattled abruptly across their poles and there was a deep sigh.  
  
Hope started to breathe again. She hadn't felt like seeing Rachel again that night. The irritation and point-scoring relationship she had with Parkinson was one thing; she could deal with that, but Rachel MacNair's intense hatred of her was quite another. Hope told herself again and again that she didn't care what Rachel thought of her, but the injustice of Rachel's feelings towards her rankled deeply. She knew that she couldn't simply dismiss this problem, but she had no clue about how to sort it out.  
  
She put her book down as silently as she could, and lay back on her pillows, staring blindly at the canopy above her bed. Her ears pricked. Somewhere, very softly, she could hear the sound of sobbing as Rachel MacNair cried herself to sleep.  
  
***  
  
She was sitting at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, stirring greyish porridge with her spoon. Chattering was going on all around her, yet her eyes were alert and focused on the high table where the staff always sat. No one bothered her here. They knew she wasn't a morning person; their fawning could come later.  
  
Dippet was there. The stupid fool couldn't see what was going on right under his eyes. A Muggle-lover, just like the Transfiguration teacher who sat to his left: Albus Dumbledore. The name was spat distastefully in her mind, as if she wished to expel all memory of him as quickly as possible. Dumbledore's watchful gaze made learning so difficult, yet she would not give up. The ingredients were almost all collected and then she could begin to brew it.  
  
A smile pulled the sides of her mouth upwards. Success must surely be assured. She would not fail, and then Dumbledore would cower at her feet where she would show no leniency but let him be trampled into the ground by her triumphant heel. Thestral hairs were the sticking point. There were no thestrals near Hogwarts...  
  
"Hagrid's got some," Hope murmured, pushing her hair back out of her eyes. "Hagrid..."  
  
It couldn't be delayed longer. Time was running out, and the castle was feeling more like a prison each day. They'd always underestimated her power. Well, this was her chance to show them what she could really do. Dumbledore had stopped her using the Chamber of Secrets basilisk, but there was no way he could anticipate this!  
  
High pitched laughter. A coup. This would be hers. All of it. She could see Hogwarts being crushed by a mighty hand, the turrets and towers crumbling like dust and those within her walls begging for mercy.  
  
"Hope!"  
  
It was time. She must make the potion... She had to do it before they found her...  
  
"Hope!"  
  
She was panting for breath, sweat soaked through her cotton nightdress and she struggled to sit up. Her face was clammy, and her heart was beating madly.  
  
"Are you ok?" Cora looked worried. "You were shouting out in your sleep. Was it a nightmare?"  
  
Hope gulped and nodded, unable to speak. She didn't want to think about her dream; it had all seemed so real. The potion, the laughter, the feeling of being absolutely right... She shivered. Cora looked even more worried.  
  
"You're not well. Shouldn't you go to Madam Pomfrey? I'll take you if you want."  
  
"I'm fine. Really I am," Hope insisted. "I've got to be down at Hagrid's soon anyway for that detention Snape gave me. Honestly, I'm ok. It was just a dream."  
  
Cora gave her a very suspicious look, but to Hope's relief she didn't press the point further. Within half an hour, Hope was washed, dressed and running down the castle lawns towards Hagrid's hut before Snape could accuse her of being late.  
  
Rachel MacNair was already there. She was leaning on the fence watching the unicorns in the paddock, their bright white glowing vividly in contrast with the black of her cloak. Hope approached her somewhat warily and stood at a slight distance. Neither girl greeted the other and the air seemed to crackle with tension.  
  
Hagrid strode out of his cabin, muffled warmly in his moleskin overcoat and grinned at Hope.  
  
"Yer in trouble then, young 'un? Snape didn' seem too pleased with yer las' night."  
  
"Fighting," Hope said, rolling her eyes in Rachel's direction.  
  
"Ahh!" Hagrid said sagely. "Well, 'slong as there's no 'arm done. Come on, now. Yeh've ter exercise them skrewts, Snape said."  
  
He led them along a little path to the point where three enormous metal crates blocked the way.  
  
"I 'ad 'em in wooden ones," he said mournfully, "but they set fire to 'em."  
  
Hope struggled to lift the lid on the first crate, but it weighed more than she could manage. She hardly budged it. MacNair stood silently and watched.  
  
"Give 'er a 'and!" Hagrid boomed, and at that, the girl moved to the opposite end of the crate and between them they levered the lid off.  
  
Hope had seen the Skrewts before, but they were evidently worse than Rachel had expected. She shrank backwards at the sight of the slimy greyish skin and the pungent smell of rotting fish that arose was enough to turn anyone's stomach. Hope felt the muscles in her abdomen clench and heave, but she fought the impulse back. If either of them was going to show any weakness at this task, it wasn't going to be her.  
  
Rachel looked ghostly-pale as Hagrid attached some sort of leash to the Skrewt and warned them about the fire that the creature could jet behind it.  
  
"They're lovely when you gets to know 'em," he said cheerfully. "This 'un's called Poppy. If both of yer put yer weight at the end of the leash, yer'll be fine." The Skrewt might be called Poppy, but she'd never seen anything less like a delicate flower in her entire life. Hope had an enormous feeling of foreboding as Hagrid handed her the end of the rope and turned his attention to the next crate.  
  
There was a 'p-hut' noise, and the Skrewt exploded at the end, catapulting itself and Hope about ten feet further forwards. Hope picked herself up quickly and hung on tightly. Rachel was still standing in the original spot, with her arms folded and a smug grin playing around her lips.  
  
"Yer here fer punishment an' all!" Hagrid roared at her. MacNair took fright and ran over to join Hope, curling the leash round her hand too. She was just in time. Another explosion, and the pair of them were dragged along with the Skrewt in a completely different direction, both of them landing face-first on the ground.  
  
Five minutes later, they were both covered in mud, and Hope's temper was not improving one little bit.  
  
"Look!" she yelled, "if we hear the 'p-hut' noise and both haul back on the leash, we should at least be able to stay standing. We don't have to talk to each other, but one of us isn't strong enough to do it on our own. You can be dragged all over the grounds if you'd like but I'd rather not!"  
  
MacNair grunted and avoided looking at Hope. The Skrewt writhed, a warning of what was coming, and Hope braced herself. Surely MacNair would help? The 'p-hut' exploded like a canon and at that precise moment, MacNair let go of the leash entirely, catapulting Hope forwards, straight into the fierce ball of flame erupting from the back end of the Skrewt. 


	11. No Pain, No Gain

**Chapter 11  
  
No Pain, No Gain**  
  
Someone was screaming.  
  
Hope fought through the thick fog that surrounded her, wondering how she could help. The screaming was becoming louder now, with a whimpering, keening note to it telling her that the person was hurt. If only she could find her way out of the mist. It was starting to lift slightly, becoming hazier in patches.  
  
"Gently! Lower her onto the bed!" a voice she definitely recognised instructed. She didn't have time to place it. Pain rent through her, ripping at her flesh; iron bands tightened their grip on her body and hot, stinging agony consumed her, showing no mercy.  
  
She felt as if she was falling and she clawed at the empty air, trying to survive. She wasn't going to give up. She'd find her way through this. The screaming was getting louder and louder, ringing through her own ears, and she became aware that she was yelling too. Those were her screams. She tried to force her eyelids open. What had happened?  
  
"It was all my fault," the gruff voice of Hagrid sobbed. "I should'a kept a bett'r eye on 'er. I knew that other gir' weren't pullin' 'er weight."  
  
"She'll be fine, Hagrid," Madam Pomfrey's brisk voice sounded professional and certain. "The burns are nasty, no doubt about it, but if you can wait outside, I can start working on them."  
  
A noise like an elephant trumpeting and a large sniff told Hope that Hagrid had blown his nose.  
  
"I'd bett'r go an' see Snape. Let 'im know..."  
  
She was left with the sounds of Madam Pomfrey's business-like feet clattering on the wooden floor, and then a screen was pulled around them, protecting them from any curious visitors. Hope managed to get her eyes opened at last and blinked feebly at Madam Pomfrey.  
  
"Good, I'm glad you're back with us," the nurse said briskly. "I'm going to have to see how extensive the burns are, and then we can set about healing them. This might hurt a little."  
  
If that was what Madam Pomfrey called hurting a little, Hope made a mental note never to find out what hurting a lot would be like. She howled out loud as fabric stuck on burnt flesh and was swiftly peeled away by busy hands. There was a lot of tutting from the nurse as she lifted limbs, inspecting the extent of the damage.  
  
"Right then!" Madam Pomfrey opened a jar of an orange jelly-like substance. She began to apply it to Hope's shoulder and left arm, trying to keep her touch as light as possible. "This will clear up the superficial burns in the next hour or so, and then we can concentrate on the areas that have been seriously damaged. If it's not too bad, then you might be able to go back to classes tomorrow. We'll know soon enough."  
  
Hope couldn't stop a cry escaping as Madam Pomfrey hit on a particularly sore patch of skin.  
  
"Sorry," the nurse commented. "Almost done."  
  
Hope closed her eyes again and let her head fall backwards into her pillow, trying to concentrate on something else. Memories scorched pictures in her brain. Rachel MacNair letting go of the rope. A huge, billowing cloud of fire erupting from the Skrewt and she was falling in nightmarish slow motion, straight into the flames, hands outstretched and with no way of stopping. She flinched from the pictures and then flinched again, this time from the stinging in her hands where Madam Pomfrey was now working.  
  
At last, the nurse was done, and stood back to observe her patient.  
  
"I'll be back in an hour," she said. "You're going to have to just lie there, I'm afraid. You can't do much with that ointment daubed all over you."  
  
Hope nodded her head slightly to show that she understood, and tried to relax. Her burns were still stinging ferociously, and she kept her eyes resolutely on the ceiling. She didn't want to relive what had just happened. She didn't want to think about her injuries, or the girl who had caused them so deliberately.  
  
There was a nasty throb from somewhere near her right collarbone, and Hope began to count the number of little wooden panels that made up the ceiling and making mental patterns out of them. She wondered briefly if her mum had done the same thing when she'd been stuck in the hospital wing looking after her as a baby, but then realised that the place where she'd been born had been destroyed less than a week afterwards.  
  
An old-fashioned witch with a white mop of a hat wandered into the painting of a forest and twinkling stream beside her bed and clucked with horror.  
  
"Thanks!" Hope said through gritted teeth. "Makes me feel so much better!"  
  
There was movement from the bed to the right, and Hope heard Madam Pomfrey's footsteps hurrying into the next cubicle.  
  
"I don't think you ought to be trying to get out of bed yet," she warned.  
  
"Who's been brought in?"  
  
Hope inwardly rolled her eyes. It was Rose Lambert in the next bed all right, fussing as much as ever.  
  
"No one you need to worry about. You just have to rest and let the potion do its work. There's been some improvement already."  
  
"I-I don't want anyone to know."  
  
Hope's ears pricked with interest, her own aches and pains momentarily forgotten. What was wrong with Rose Lambert?  
  
"Of course they won't know," Madam Pomfrey chided her patient. "Really dear, you're worrying about nothing. Would you like some copies of /i to read to take your mind off things? You don't seem to be making much headway with your classwork."  
  
Hope sighed to herself, wondering how much work she was missing in class. She'd only just started to catch up and then all this had happened. Stebbins would be tearing his hair out if she didn't make it down to Quidditch practise tonight. There had to be a way to persuade Madam Pomfrey to let her out of the hospital wing.  
  
If only her hands would stop hurting!  
  
The hour dragged past agonisingly slowly, but Madam Pomfrey eventually returned with a large metal basin full of water and a second jar full of purplish slime. She helped Hope to a sitting position and carefully began to clean her wounds. Hope was relieved to see that a lot of the oozing sores had virtually vanished already, and her skin was nowhere near as sensitive as it had been earlier that morning.  
  
Madam Pomfrey, however, was frowning at the area near her collarbone. There was a weeping burn still blazing across the pale skin, and Hope's hands and forearms were equally stiff and sore. It felt like she was wearing a type of thick rubber glove that gave her little electric shocks every time she moved.  
  
The nurse worked swiftly, applying the new potion and binding the remaining wounds in clean white bandages. Hope stared at her hands, bound like an ancient Egyptian mummy, and sighed heavily when Madam Pomfrey had to help her to dress again. This was humiliating. She should have realised that Rachel would seize any opportunity to hurt her for what she believed Hope had done to her father. Why hadn't she been on her guard?  
  
By the time lunch came around, Hope was in a thoroughly foul mood. She'd accepted Madam Pomfrey's offer of _TeenWitch_ and been incandescent with irritation when she discovered that she couldn't turn over the flimsy pages of the magazine. Her skin felt as if it were being tightened on a torture rack and there was certainly no way she was going to be able to escape to play Quidditch. Madam Pomfrey had scoffed at the very question.  
  
The hospital wing door flew open, and Severus Snape stalked in, his sallow face somewhat paler than usual, but his black robes billowing out behind him as they always did. His dark eyes alighted on Hope and he nodded briefly at her, before disappearing into Madam Pomfrey's office and closing the door behind him.  
  
Through the glass partition, Hope could see the two adults talking, both wearing grave expressions. Snape paced restlessly around the room, turned back to the nurse and said something angrily to her. Madam Pomfrey nodded and Snape turned abruptly to leave her office.  
  
Hope had expected him to stride straight back out of the hospital wing, but to her surprise, Snape headed straight for the chair beside her bed and settled himself in it. He cleared his throat.  
  
"Potter, it seems that you have a propensity to take after your father. He wasted a considerable amount of school time in here as well. There are easier ways of missing lessons!"  
  
"It wasn't my fault this time!" Hope objected.  
  
"No?" Snape said smoothly. "Perhaps you'd better tell me what happened."  
  
The words were said so silkily smoothly that Hope almost blurted the truth out at once, yet she held herself back. Deliberately injuring another student would undoubtedly put Rachel MacNair in danger of being expelled, and much as Hope was furious with the other girl, she couldn't bring herself to do it. Somehow she would sort MacNair out in her own time, _her_ way.  
  
"Nothing," she said.  
  
"Nothing? Then please tell me what has happened to your hands."  
  
"Blast-ended Skrewt," Hope explained briefly. "It was too strong for me, and I got hurt. That's all."  
  
"And MacNair?" Snape said, a glint in his eye showing a keen understanding of the situation. "She was intended to be sharing the detention with you, and had she been doing as she was told, then she would have shared your injuries."  
  
Hope said nothing. There seemed to be nothing she could say.  
  
"Hagrid informs me that MacNair appeared to let go of the leash to cause you harm," Snape continued. "Even allowing for Hagrid's natural bias towards you and your family, it seems to be a reasonable assumption to make in the circumstances."  
  
"I wouldn't know," Hope replied, wondering why on earth she was trying to cover up for Rachel MacNair. Inwardly she was berating herself for her silence. "Perhaps you should ask her what happened."  
  
Snape stood up and looked at her in such a way that Hope wondered if he could possibly know what was going on in her mind. "That has already been done, Potter," he said softly. "Believe me, irritating as you undoubtedly are, I had no intention for your punishment to turn out this way."  
  
He left as suddenly as he had arrived, leaving Hope to wonder what had been going on in the rest of the school. She didn't have long to wait until a breathless Cora and Matthew barged into the room just before lunchtime was over. Cora's dark hair was curling wildly about her face and Matthew looked every bit as dishevelled as she did. Madam Pomfrey glared disapprovingly at the pair of them.  
  
"No visitors!" she said crossly. "You can come back and see Miss Potter after dinner this evening." Cora's face fell with disappointment and she turned to Matthew, seeking some support.  
  
"Please, Madam Pomfrey?" Hope begged. "I'm bored. I can't read or play cards or anything with my hands like this." She lifted her two bandaged fists to illustrate her point, looking woefully pathetic.  
  
Madam Pomfrey chuckled. "You reminded me of your mother just then. She did the wounded innocent expression far too well when she was here. All right, then. Ten minutes, but no getting up to any mischief!"  
  
Hope wriggled up in her bed, crossing her legs so that she was sitting up properly and then beamed at her friends.  
  
"What's been happening?" she demanded, even before they'd settled into chairs by her bed. "Snape was in here a few minutes ago being really cryptic."  
  
Cora gave a muffled exclamation of horror as she saw the full extent of Hope's bandaging. "Your poor hands! What did she do?"  
  
"It's not as bad as it looks," Hope tried to dismiss the concern. "Pomfrey's got this stuff all over me. Maybe she gets a discount for buying it in bulk."  
  
Matthew looked worried. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand whilst he looked at Hope's bandages. "MacNair did this to you?" he said with quiet fury. He glanced straight at Hope, colouring furiously, but never letting his eyes fall. She noticed then that his fists were clenched in his lap.  
  
"Don't!" Hope protested, and rubbed a bandaged hand on his angry fist in an attempt to calm him down. He jumped, and quickly shuffled back in his seat, his face glowing like the setting sun. "It's done now, and there's nothing you can do. Leave it for now, and I'll think of a way to sort out our lovely Miss MacNair without us all getting expelled for it."  
  
"Did she really deliberately do this to you?" Cora asked, aghast.  
  
Hope hesitated, then nodded slowly. "She might not have thought about what would happen..."  
  
"Might not have thought about it!" Matthew scoffed. "The Skrewt was shooting flames and she decided to let go of the only thing keeping you from being burnt. What do you think she expected to happen? Do you honestly think she expected the Skrewt to give you a bunch of flowers?"  
  
Hope chuckled weakly. "Is she in a lot of trouble? Snape wasn't giving anything away earlier."  
  
"Snape was livid when he hauled her out of History of Magic," Cora breathed. "I've never seen him as mad as that before. He just strode right in and MacNair went totally white. I thought she was going to faint. Snape marched her out of the room so fast, literally dragging her by her arm and didn't say a single word the whole time he was in there. We heard him ranting at her outside, before he took her off to Circinus' office. I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel."  
  
"Circinus?" Hope's eyes widened. So the headmaster had become involved in all of this. "She's not going to be expelled, is she? I mean, I'll be all right in a day or two and I can't see her trying it again."  
  
"She deserves it!" Matthew said staunchly.  
  
"She made a mistake," Hope argued with him. "I've stuffed it up plenty of times in the past."  
  
"You never mean to hurt anybody else," Cora pointed out tartly. "Don't go wasting your sympathies on the likes of Rachel MacNair."  
  
"I don't like her," Hope said. "It's not that. Cora... how would you feel if you ever came face to face with the person who killed your dad in the war?"  
  
There was a long pause, and Hope's heart twisted at the expression on her friend's face. Cora's life would have been so different if her father hadn't been killed, just like Rachel would be such a different person if her father had not been imprisoned in Azkaban.  
  
"I-I'd feel like killing them too," Cora admitted, her voice trembling. Her eyes lifted fearfully to look at Hope.  
  
"And Rachel blames me for her dad being taken away."  
  
"Yes, but it wasn't your fault," Belford interjected. "Whoever killed Cora's dad actually did do it. MacNair's dad was the one who chose to be a follower of that evil wizard bloke and he would have known what would have happened if they failed. She should be blaming him for being stupid, not you because Dumbledore used your powers. Apart from your magic, you didn't have anything to do with any of it!"  
  
"I know that and you know that, but, sure as anything, Rachel won't see it that way."  
  
"Then she's going to have to learn!" Matthew insisted. Hope smiled at him and he turned crimson.  
  
Madam Pomfrey appeared through the gap in the curtains and glanced meaningfully at her watch.  
  
"You two are going to be late, and I need to change Miss Potter's dressings. Run along. You may visit for a little while after dinner this evening."  
  
Hope watched sadly as her two friends scuttled off, and then lay down again, bracing herself for another painful session with the nurse.  
  
Saturday morning dawned, bright and fresh. A slight frost had breathed across the Hogwarts lawns, making Hope itch to grab her broom and go flying. Her Silver Lightning had arrived from home two whole days ago, and was annoyingly still lying unused in her dormitory. Stebbins had dropped in to visit, and had been surprisingly sympathetic to her plight.  
  
"Rotten luck," he'd said, snaffling a handful of her Every Flavour Beans and tossing them upwards, one at a time to catch them in his mouth. He had choked momentarily. "Liver!" he 'd complained. "All the same, Potter, bloody well get better, all right? Quimby's on detention for McGonagall all next week for snogging a girl in the Charms corridor, and I wouldn't like to be in his shoes when he flies again. Worst of all, Dryadne Littleton wasn't the girl he had his hands all over when McGonagall caught him. One thing to remember, Hope, whatever you do in your life, never ever be unfaithful to the Beater on your Quidditch team."  
  
Leaving Hope to commit this sage piece of relationship advice to memory, Stebbins had nicked a couple of her chocolate frogs on his way out of the door.  
  
Madam Pomfrey had promised that Hope could leave the hospital wing that morning. Her arms and fingers had been mended, and apart from the wound over by her collarbone, she was as fit as ever and desperate to get back into school life. Having nothing but the screen that concealed Rose Lambert for company wasn't Hope's idea of fun. She'd even tried to strike up a few conversations with the screen, but had been met with a stony silence.  
  
Robert, Cora and Matthew had visited as much as they had been allowed to, bringing with them shreds of gossip. Rachel MacNair hadn't been seen at all for two whole days after she had been removed from the History of Magic lesson. Rumours had instantly flown around the school that she'd been expelled or taken away to study at Durmstrang. Other houses had muttered that this sort of behaviour was typical of all Slytherins and only to be expected; a comment that surprised Hope by how much it annoyed her.  
  
However, Robert had caught sight of Rachel in Snape's little office during the last Potions lesson, and after much discussion, the four friends had concluded that MacNair must be working and sleeping in isolation from the rest of the school whilst the staff fathomed what they were going to do with her. If MacNair was still within the school walls, then it seemed unlikely that she still faced expulsion.  
  
At long last, Madam Pomfrey came into the ward itself and beamed at Hope.  
  
"One last check, and then you can go to breakfast, young lady," she said. Hope wriggled obligingly out of her shirt, and stood patiently whilst the witch inspected her last remaining injury. There was a long, non-committal, 'Hmmmm,' and Madam Pomfrey applied the purplish liquid on the burn once more. It smelt nice, of almonds and flowers, but stung bitterly. She was bandaged up again, and got ready to go.  
  
"That dressing must be changed daily," Madam Pomfrey insisted, wagging a stern finger at her charge. "Don't forget, or I'll have you back in here before you can say Peruvian Vipertooth!"  
  
Hope giggled and hurried down to the Great Hall. It felt wonderful to be back amongst the chattering students again. She saw Cora and Matthew nudge each other, and beckon her over to them, grins as wide as her own. She slid onto the seat opposite them and helped herself to a large bowl of cereal.  
  
"Seven tonight, Potter!" Stebbins yelled down the table.  
  
Hope nodded, her mouth too full to be able to shout anything in reply. Cora frowned.  
  
"Should you be flying already?"  
  
"Dunno," Hope mumbled through a mouthful of food. "Pomfrey didn't say I couldn't. Besides, I've only got a week left to teach Matthew how to fly before our lessons start."  
  
The boy in question choked violently on his breakfast, and Cora reached over and obligingly banged him on the back. He whooped in a breath and coughed again.  
  
"You don't have to," he wheezed. "Their teasing won't be much worse than it is already if I fall off."  
  
"They shouldn't be teasing you at all," Hope said severely, and helped herself to some toast.  
  
There was a shout of pure horror lower down the Slytherin table and all heads immediately craned to see what was going on. Quimby pushed his chair back and stood, looking down at himself in abject horror. Hope burst out laughing.  
  
The Quidditch player's hair had lengthened into ringlets of brash gold, tied back with a sparkling pink bow and daubs of make-up covered his face. His usual affectation of casual poise had gone, and he was now wobbling violently to keep his balance on teetering stiletto heels, his hairy legs bare until they reached the tiny leather mini-skirt that clung to him like a second skin. Wolf-whistles broke out around the hall. Quimby clutched his hands desperately to his chest.  
  
"You've given me breasts, you complete and utter co-"  
  
His words were lost in the tearful hilarity of those around him. Snape's eyebrows shot up at the staff table, and he looked suspiciously at Hope. She shook her head. It hadn't been her this time.  
  
A tall figure brushed past, and Hope saw Dryadne Littleton grinning wickedly down at her. "Excellent idea for a spell, Potter."  
  
Quimby tried to twist round to chase after his former girlfriend and give her a piece of his mind but he never quite made it. There was a loud crash as he overbalanced and landed flat on his back.  
  
Snape stalked down to the Slytherin table amidst the howls of laughter and hoisted Quimby back to his feet.  
  
"You two," he commanded, pointing to Stebbins and another seventh year boy, "get him back to his dormitory and make him stay there until I have time to deal with him."  
  
"S-sir?" the puce-faced Quimby stuttered. "How long is this going to last? I mean, I'm not a... I can't... not like this..."  
  
Snape pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. "You upset Littleton?" he said thoughtfully, as if trying to do a massive calculation. "She's likely to get an Outstanding for Charms, I believe. You'll be lucky if you're back to normal this side of Christmas, Quimby. Perhaps it will help you to keep your mind off the fairer sex and on your studies for a while."  
  
Quimby groaned, and was helped out by the other two boys, his legs sliding dramatically from beneath him as he went. Snape watched him go, frowning heavily at his retreating back. The laughter was dying away in the Great Hall, and post began to flutter in, distracting everyone's attention elsewhere.  
  
Snape moved a little so he was right next to the three friends. "Two things, Potter," he said silkily. "First of all, I would appreciate it if that particular spell could be confined to your own repertoire, and not shared with hormonal fifth years bent on revenge. Secondly, once you have finished your breakfast, I would like your presence in my office. We have some business that must be discussed." 


End file.
